


Flotsam & Jetsam

by astraielle, ghoulaesthetics (astraielle)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cunnilingus, Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Tough Love, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Outdoor Sex, Pining, Post-Demands of the Qun, Pre-Relationship, Pre-demands of the qun, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Well of Sorrows, dragon-fight fuelled sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:29:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14460177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/astraielle, https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraielle/pseuds/ghoulaesthetics
Summary: Of a handful of things, Bull is certain. For example, demons are to be avoided at all costs. Magic is suspicious at its best, an unchecked force of destruction at worst. The Qun is (mostly, usually) right about how one should conduct themselves. Dragons are, by far, the coolest thing he's ever heard of. The Ben-hassrath need to have his eyes (metaphorically speaking, of course) on that new military power growing in the south, The Inquisition. And the sooner someone patches up that hole in the sky, the better.Bull is less certain about other things. Whether he prefers a broadsword to a great axe in a fight (axe, mostly). If cocoa truly tasted better with or without heavy cream. The Qun is (mostly, usually) right about how one should conduct themselves. The least certain on that entire list, at the moment, was the elven mage at the head of the Inquisition herself, and the true reason he kept inviting her into his bed, time and time again, no matter how much of a dangerous idea sleeping with your boss tends to be.(An examination of magic, intimacy, and longevity through the Bull's eye.)





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> s o this was only meant to be like a 4k oneshot but it kinda. morphed. not that i'm displeased with that development either, ofc.

Mages made him nervous.

Mages made  _most_  Qunari nervous. 

He assumed, of course, there would be exceptions to the sensible norm. To not want to account for them out of convenience would be foolish. Though, likely as anything, those would only be found outside the Qun. The general sentiment towards them inside—well. One look at the Saarebas, prisoners in their own skin under heavy chains and metal blindfolds, was enough to make the Qun’s feelings towards them clear. Bull had always considered them to be an inelegant weapon. Strong when used correctly, but too prone to unpredictability, too prone to costly mistakes when not controlled properly. The Templars had their own solutions to their own mage problems. Circles were their first line of defence, and if they gnashed their teeth against those gentle restraints, there was always the option of Tranquility. Both of those things he’d decided, were far more forgiving than their fate under the Qun. Here, at least, they had something akin to an option. 

It wasn’t perfect by any means, and he’d no doubt that too many Templars were far too eager to strip mages of their personhood, leaving them as the blank-faced husks he occasionally saw around Haven. Just two of them, keeping to themselves and following orders without complaint. He didn’t mind being around those, but there was something mildly uncomfortable about their unwavering eye contact. 

The Inquisitor, on the other hand, seemed to mind very much. She avoided them at all costs, refused to let her eyes stray to the brand of the Sun Burst on their foreheads. And he could understand why, being an apostate herself. From what he understood, the Chantry typically allowed the Dalish to deal with their mages on their own terms, but not always. Being around so many holy folks, so many humans, had put her on edge. And perhaps that was why he allowed her to stray closer to him than he normally would have liked. 

The humans went out of their way to avoid them both if they could. But only one of them had to deal with the knowledge that their wariness might lead to her condemnation to a waking death. 

Bull didn’t trust her. Not yet. It wasn’t like she was the same as his Dalish, who insisted she only dealt in arrows and nothing of the arcane sort. The Inquisitor, this Isenril Lavellan, brandished her staff openly on the field, didn’t bother to make a secret of what she was and held it with a fierce, quiet pride. It was commendable, in its own way, but reminded him too much of an animal that had got itself cornered and was trying to seem bigger than it was. And trusting that animal not to start using its claws wasn’t a mistake he was about to make. 

Still, a job was a job. Par Vollen wanted his eye on the inside, and the Chargers were satisfied with the consistent source of coin. And if part of that included spending time with and taking orders from a Bas-Saarebas, then that was fine. He could stuff down and personal reservations he may have had to do the job, and was booned by the fact that, as much as those Chantry boys distrusted him, the Qunari, they trusted  _her_  even less. 


	2. Chapter 2

“Thought you said you didn’t do healing.” 

“I don’t.” 

A single corrupted Templar was no trouble to deal with. Even a small group of them, they could wipe out easily. But like a swarm of insects, even they found strength in numbers, and in the thick of things, he’d taken a few blows himself. Nothing overly deep or serious, but enough to cause discomfort, and enough to warrant treatment. 

Not too far away, Vivienne was working with Blackwall, paying them no mind as she went about her purpose. Madame de Fer claimed she was no healer either, but compared to Lavellan, she was infinitely more skilled in the area. 

“I don’t do healing,” she said again as she hovered around where he sat, stooped on a low rock as he unenthusiastically wiped down the fresh blood off his great-axe, as per Vivienne’s instructions. 

“But we’re out of potions, and I’ve been politely asked to do what I can until we make it to a camp. I mean, you’re definitely allowed to say  _no_ , but…” She trailed off as she glanced back at the other half of the party. The rest of the sentence was implicit, and if Madam de Fer could get him to wipe down his weapons between fights, she’d have no trouble asking him to sit still and accept the magical treatment.

With a grunt and slight sigh, he set aside the axe. She was right, of course. One look and a few words from the Grand Enchanter would be all it took to break stubborn resolve. 

“Do what you gotta do, then.” The worst was on his forearm, where his skin had been slit open in a gash, the bleeding largely slowed down to a slow, viscous trickle. Everything else was a topical scratch in comparison. 

She started there first, pulling off one fingerless glove with her teeth as the other hand positioned the arm better. Sitting as he was, they were more or less at the same eye level, and even though she wasn’t meeting his eyes, he could see the gold flicker of her irises as she examined the cut, her now-bare hand flaring up with a soft blue glow. Qunari skin behaved differently, able to stand the hot sun of the North and wear poison that would debilitate or even kill anyone else. It was thicker, splitting like leather with nearly every cut a clean line unless deliberately torn otherwise. She followed the line with her hand, hovering just above touching and letting the cool sensation of the magic work its way in. 

Magical healing was something he preferred to avoid, or at least,  _this_  kind was. It would scar, but the scar would be  _different_ than his others, and it made his flesh move and crawl in a way that was far too unnatural for comfort. His jaw tightened slightly as he reminded himself not to jerk his limb back at the sensation, that it didn’t actually feel  _bad_ , only very very strange. And besides that, she was being exceptionally gentle with him, as if sensing his displeasure with the whole situation. 

“Sorry this is taking so long,” she said with a brief glance upwards before returning focus. “Like I said, not exactly my thing.” Stray hairs had fallen over her eyes, and, like he often felt when she came to drink with him and the Chargers at the Herald’s Rest, there was the inexplicable urge to move the errant strands back behind an ear. He never acted on it, of course, they weren’t in any sort of position where he felt he could justify such a thing. They drank, they talked, they laughed, they got on better than he ever could have anticipated back at Haven, but there was a wall there, and he wasn’t quite willing to cross over that. Besides, such an action had absolutely no place in his life. 

“Could’ve fooled me—looks like it’s working just fine.” And it was. From the inside out, as always, the outer layers near the top would be the last things to close. But already it could easily be mistaken as a wound that had at least two weeks to heal over. It was a slower process than someone who devoted actual time into the craft, but no less effective. And if it were something actually serious, he’d no doubt that Vivienne wouldn’t have sent her over. 

“Oh?” she smiled, “I suppose that getting yourself stabbed enough times  _would_ make you some sort of authority on the subject.” 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grinned. “I’ve never taken a bad hit in my life.” 

“Oh, of course. My mistake, then—I’d forgotten about your flawless field record for a second there.” She was still smiling, mostly to herself. Her hand, the one holding his arm steady (not that he couldn’t hold still on his own, but she seemed to be very meticulous about keeping him where she needed him to be) was pleasantly cool, and mostly soft. The pattern of the callouses gave her away as a staff user, the other hand no doubt bearing more of the same. 

It was easy for him to forget how comparatively small she was, only really realizing it once more when she put herself inside his space. Those hands, for example, could both easily be folded in a single one of his palms. He watched them move as she worked, following the tiny, hair-thin scars that crisscrossed most of the skin. Longish squared nails that she never bothered to lacquer, no matter how much Josie tried to impress upon her the importance of detail in her appearance. Each fingertip had a faint bluish tinge to the end—poor circulation or a side effect of her constant frost-casting? He couldn’t decide which was more likely. On the side of her left wrist, resting over the prominent bone, a faded oval-shaped burn, the kind you’d get from careless cooking. Right index finger, just as slim and bony as the others, but bent inward at a slight angle—definitely broken at one point, hadn’t healed quite the same. The kind of detail almost everyone would miss, and the kind of detail he’d automatically learned to absorb. 

You could learn a lot from a person without them ever opening their mouths. 

Of course, that wasn’t something he had to worry about doing with Lavellan. 

“You almost good with that?”

“Just about.” 

He nodded once, aware that she wasn’t paying attention to much else beyond her immediate line of sight. The initial discomfort had ebbed away as he occupied his mind with other things, but was making itself known once more. Peering down, he could see that she had at least another three, maybe five minutes to go. He let out a steady breath. Almost over, almost,  _almost_ —he could weather it, even if he wanted to jump out of his own hide. 

“How’d you do that to your hand?” He asked, trying to break his own focus.

“Do what?” She asked without moving. 

“That,” he repeated, roughly gesturing with his chin to her right hand. “Broken finger.”

“Oh,” she said, eyes flicking over. “That. I didn’t know you could tell.”

“Most people can’t,” he amended, “or wouldn’t. It’s not that noticeable—it was either I look at a million miles of sand for the last ten minutes, or, well… You, I guess.” It was a mildly odd thing to admit out loud. 

He watched her face carefully form a soft, half-smile, hints of mirth and amusement threatening to tug it wider.  _Demure_ , on someone else he might call it. He’d seen it cross her face too often with him to be just that, though. Watching it felt almost like he was intruding on some private moment, some inside joke that wasn’t quite meant for him. 

“Well, I’m flattered that I won the contest between me and the sand.” 

“It  _was_  a pretty tight race for first place.” 

“I’m sure,” she chuckled. “But anyway, it’s not an overly exciting story. A few years after I realized I was a mage, I figured I needed some sort of object to cast from. Better focus, and better the inanimate whatever-it-was take the brunt of a spell misfire than my own arm. And, you know, a large staff, it’s more or less the norm, and they look impressive too, so I thought it’d be easy to pick up.” 

She was working as she spoke, and with that, she’d finished the final seam on his skin. The soft glow around her hand extinguished itself, and she gave her work a once-over. The resulting scar was uncannily smooth, a diminutive dip in the skin, and nothing like how it would have healed naturally. She let his arm go, evidently satisfied as she gave a slight nod. 

“And you were wrong, I’m assuming.” Almost mechanically, he took his axe back up and resumed the automatic cleaning process. 

“And he assumes correctly.” She sighed, blinking once slowly as if remembering the embarrassing event and the action could somehow erase that. “Yes, well, tried to twirl it, cast some fire as I’d seen the Keeper do once or twice. What actually happened was half a twirl, something snapping in my wrist, flicking the staff backwards somehow, and breaking not one but  _two_  of my fingers.” She shrugged, as if to say  _what can you do? Life happens_. “Although the middle one healed just fine. Like I said, not all that exciting.” 

He parted his lips slightly to say something more, some sort of quip or soft jab at the honestly  _bland_  accident, but Vivienne’s voice cut through the desert air, interrupting whatever thought he was going to vocalize and claiming Lavellan’s attention. 

“Are you quite finished, my Dear? We’re very nearly wrapped up over here; we’ll be ready to move shortly.”

“Hm? Whenever you are—we’ve just finished, and if I’m not mistaken, the camp shouldn’t be too far out either. To the west, I think? Or, no, wait…” 

The conversation continued in the background, something about directions and immediate foot travel plans. Bull was left to finish cleaning his weapon, and felt, once more, as though he was missing out on something not quite yet meant for him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Magic was a weapon. Magic was a tool. 

 _Same as a sword_ , he reminded himself as the Boss called up a wall of solid ice from the back line that was at least double his height, shielding he and Cole from the latest demons to fall out of the rift. 

 _Same as a sword_ , he thought as he grit his teeth and cleaved the Rage Demon in half.  _Same as a sword, as an axe, as an arrow—she knows what she’s doing._

She did. They all did, the Mages of the inner circle. Never once had one of Dorian’s errant fireballs landed a shot on him, nor had Vivienne struck him when she called down the storm over the field. The Boss especially, who he seemed to be on patrols with the most, and therefore logically had the most chance of inflicting accidental damage--the only thing he’d ever felt from her was the occasional barrier in a pinch, and even those were rare. 

What he’d come to expect from her by now was cover fire, assists and set-ups for some absolutely spectacular displays of destruction. It hadn’t even been something they set out to deliberately achieve, but they had a rhythm, a sense of each other on—and off—the field. 

Out here, she was still  _Boss_ , still the Inquisitor. He saw her just as everyone else did. 

In the dead of night at Skyhold, he got to see the woman underneath the armour. 

Out of the goodness of his heart, maybe.  _Stress relief_ , he called it, and it didn’t take a spy to figure out that she was up to her neck in stress, no thanks to the demands of the Inquisition. It was easy to convince himself that the desire was purely altruistic on his end, and not at all in response to her attempts at artful seduction and the curiosity it bred in him. The lingering touches in the Herald’s Rest left him wondering what the rest of her felt like. Airy laughter had him imagining what other sounds he could possibly draw from her. Each time she took a swig of wine, he thought of how it would taste mixed with _her._  His fantasies and hypothesis seemed dull in comparison to the real thing, enthusiastic and eager and ready for whatever he wanted to give.

The  _Boss_  was someone he fell into step with every time another hole opened up in the Fade.  _Isenril_  was a wholly different game with completely unique rules. And there was a certain kind of sharp beauty in the balance in between. 

As if on cue, the rift spat out three more demons, each somehow uglier than the last. And on that very same cue, he raised his axe above his head, setting up for the crushing blow, not the least bit surprised when the trio was frozen solid, as if set up as an intentional courtesy on his behalf.

_(It was.)_

The resounding shatter made the most deliciously satisfying sound. 

 _A weapon just like any other—well, maybe a_ bit _flashier._

It wasn’t the same as the Saarebas. For one thing, a Saarebas wouldn’t be giving orders. They were at the disposal of their handlers, moving only as instructed with no sense of self-preservation in sight. It  _felt_  different with them too—here, there was a degree of—well. Not trust, exactly, but it was in that vein for certain. The element of unpredictability was still present, magic still a dangerous unknown as a whole even if he could place individual faces to it. But the air of confidence made up for it, either a well-masked fear or a lack of it in their abilities. The Boss wasn’t the most brazen mage he’d ever run across. Compared to the Vint and Vivienne, she practically faded into the background. But she wasn’t afraid of herself, wasn’t fearful of her innate powers and potential for danger like the Circle-bred mages at Skyhold were. 

And strangely, he felt better about fighting alongside that than he would have if she were shackled and subjugated as someone like her would have been under the Qun. Not that he’d ever done much standing beside Qunari mages on Seheron or Par Vollen—they didn’t really have a place beside the Ben-Hassrath. He’d heard enough to figure out what it would have been like, though. Well-trained, sure, they wouldn’t be allowed to mix in with field soldiers if they weren’t. Putting one of them down if they suddenly decided to snap, however, could prove significantly more difficult than taking care of a disgruntled soldier with a sword. 

The fight dragged on outside of his head, intense but not to the point where he had to cut off his thought process completely. A Shade here, a Rage Demon there, each fell almost with a predictable rhythm. There was an art to fighting, he’d admit that, and so would any warrior worth their salt. But he wouldn’t go so far as to wax poetic about it, comparing the bloody hack show to a ballroom dance. In his experience, the people who sat around and did shit like that usually wound up dead before they could finish their two-step. 

Rivulets of sweat and blood ran over his skin. For all the glory and lengthy descriptions field accounts offered fights, they were usually over rather quick between anything that wasn’t a large-scale army. This one felt like it had been dragging on for damn near an hour, but really was probably closer to ten minutes. He blamed those bastards with the legs that kept disappearing underground for that. 

“Almost!” The Boss called from behind him, “It’s almost ready to be sealed, should just be one more wave— _oh, for the love of_ —!!” 

With a satisfied grunt, he finally managed to sink his axe into the neck of that thing that’d nearly tripped him up twice now as it sprang up up the dirt under his feet. It fell with an agonizing, drawn-out screech, and he turned towards the sound of the Boss’s incoherent string of Elven curses. He wasn’t tired, but the incessant repetition was getting on his nerves. 

If there was anything he intended to say, it was cut off as the rift spit out not one, but  _two_  Pride Demons, massive with their gnashing teeth and waves of visible lightning rolling off of them as if some sort of challenge. 

It was difficult to hear any shouts over the crackling in the air, but the look on everyone’s faces seemed to be universally irate. The Boss, in particular, who knew full well that Pride Demons boasted a natural resistance to her strongest school of magic. From the look of it, she was straight-up  _pissed,_ and Bull couldn’t even say he blamed her. Less than two hours into their morning, and this was already how the day was shaping up to be. 

 _Here we go again_. 

Both demons were still near the rifts, but were advancing more towards the Boss and Varric than they were to himself and Cassandra. That wouldn’t do. As he charged forward beside the Seeker, he caught the Boss’s line of sight. Just a brief glance, a split-second connection before the clash of metal-on-demon began and the sounds of Pride’s enraged screeching filled the air. In that instant, he felt the barrier wrap tightly around his skin. Invisible, the defensive magic enveloped him in an air-tight embrace, a cooling sensation against the heat of the air. 

And it didn’t break his stride once. 

 _Unnatural_ , but at the same time, not out of place. It wasn’t jarring to wear such a cloak, no reason for panic as the Boss reached out and called the Fade onto him automatically before turning back to the offensive. 

A Saarebas would never be permitted to throw such a close-clinging barrier around a foot soldier. Large ones to encompass multiple bodies, maybe, but nothing like this. And not only did he allow it, but he almost expected it. There probably wouldn’t be any need for it—he didn’t plan to let himself get bested by something as insignificant as a couple of Pride Demons—but all the same, he had no trouble accepting the extra layer of defence. If it saved him a cut or two, then the Boss would have done her job. Maybe he’d even thank her for it, if they got the chance. 

 _So, not just a weapon_ , he amended as he side-stepped a whip of lightning.  _Maybe more like a shield. Or not. Something with multiple uses. Shit, what sort of weapon would that even be?_

He’d have to ask what she thought of the idea later. 

Maybe. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna finish this fic i SWEAR 
> 
> told u this chapter was gonna be beefier tho lmao

“A Qunari alliance?” She raised an eyebrow, looking back down at the letter in her hand and then back over to him. “Just like that? Out of nowhere?”  


Isenril was still reclined back on the bed—his bed, to be more accurate. It wasn’t that she planned on staying when they were done, or even that it was particularly normal for them to retreat to his quarters instead of hers. But she didn’t have anywhere she was required to be, and as such seemed to be in no hurry to stand and redress herself. In fact, up until he’d handed her the letter, she’d looked more content lounging nude on his pillows than he’d ever seen her, like a cat on the precipice of falling asleep in the sun.

“Not nowhere,” he corrected. “Been in contact with them since I came here. Probably been considering it for a while.”

“Right, of course. Almost forgot about that.” Her eyes returned to the page, scanning the words once more. Two copies of the message had arrived. One in neat, even strokes on Qunlat and the other in a slightly less-practised but still precise common. That had been a request on his part, an attempt at as much transparency as he could stand to offer. While he didn’t see Isenril saying no to the request outright, it didn’t hurt to have her read the words herself.

He could tell she was going over it several times, trying to consider the possibilities in her mind as she did with every other decision that got dropped in her lap. She’d stopped sipping the wine she’d brought upstairs with her, holding it still in her other hand with the rim pressed gently to her lips. Not like there was much left in the cup anyway. Knowing her, the only real purpose it served was keeping her hands busy at this point.

“So, from what I’m gathering here, we’re essentially being offered a bolster to our numbers against Corypheus. I’m not—mm, I’m not opposed to it. Bit strange though.”  


“Stange how? It’s a common enemy. Not good for anyone. And all that crap with the red lyrium—no one wants to see what would come out of that mess.” He’d risen from his place on the bed and began to redress. The nudity wasn’t an issue, obviously, but once the deed was finished with, Bull didn’t care for the feelings of exposure. She, on the other hand, seemed not to care one lick about it in most settings. Setting up camp with her in the field was almost a guarantee the entire party would get an eyeful of her at some point during the evening.

“Believe me, I’m well aware.” She rolled over slightly, placing the nearly empty glass on the table as she propped herself up, perhaps in an attempt to appear more awake than she was feeling. “And that does make sense. I guess it’s just surprising to me that the Inquisition would be the Qunari’s first true alliance on the continent.”  


He shrugged, adjusting the buckles on his belt. “It’s convenient. Logical. And we’re not exactly a small group anymore, Boss. We’ve got the numbers to back it up, proof that we can actually get things accomplished.”

The letter would hold no more information for her, and so she folded it back up in thirds and placed it next to her glass. She linked her hands together over her head and stretched, glancing disdainfully at her pile of discarded clothing on the floor. “Mm. You’re not wrong. Might piss off more of our faithful pilgrims though.” Her mouth twisted up into a lazy smirk on the last word. No matter how much she’d tried to make people understand that she was in no way a mouthpiece for Andraste, it didn’t seem to stop the accusations from flying. It would have been amusing if it wasn’t such a pain in the ass.

“No offence Boss, but I doubt you could make a move at this point that  _wouldn’t_  be pissing someone off.” He sat back down, completely dressed save for the boots that remained by the door.   


He caught the minute frown that flashed over her features at the word  _Boss_  as it left his mouth. Not at the first one, but the second one for sure. She replaced it almost immediately with the same expression she’d been wearing before, and if he hadn’t been looking he would have missed it.

“Also not wrong about that one,” she chuckled. “I do kind of like the idea of having even more Andrastians mad at me. Makes my day so much more interesting.” Another sidelong glance at the letter, her clothes, then back to him. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it though,” she observed, tilting her head to the side. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were trying to convince us both.”

“Good thing you know me better,” he replied, meeting her gaze with a level one of his own. “I’m fine.”  


“But?” she prompted.

“But nothing,” he scoffed. “It’s just—I’m more used to them being, you know, over  _there_.”  


“Ah,” she said knowingly. He waited for the rest of her thought, but it never came.

“That’s it?”  


“What’s it?”  


“That,” he pointed out. “No commentary? No side-thoughts on that one?”

“Don’t need to,” she said. “It makes sense when you say it like that. Not saying I get it completely, you know, but it does make sense.”

“Right.” He decided not to press it further, not seeing a point in continuing that part of the discussion. “So, if that’s the case then I take it you…?”  


“We’ll meet them on the Storm Coast,” she affirmed. “If nothing else comes of this and the alliance falls through, at least we’ll have a chance at taking out the Venatori and their red lyrium shipments. That alone makes it worth investigating, in my mind at least.” She straightened her back and crossed her legs beneath her, apparently drawing out the process of making herself presentable once more as long as possible. It was only midday, after all. No doubt she’d be needed elsewhere in Skyhold at some point. “So, aside from the time and place, that actual tactical plan—is that really our best bet?” She frowned. “I know the element of surprise would theoretically be on our side, but I’m not sure how I feel about moving in with such a small force.”

“No way around that one. Anything larger, they’d see us coming. The whole operation pretty much becomes a waste of time at that point.”  


She hummed thoughtfully, processing. “That’s really the only part I’m not completely pleased with,” she confessed. “I agree though—can’t really get around that one. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see how that one pans out for us.”

“Nothing else we can do,” he agreed.   


At that, she’d finally gathered enough inertia to start collecting herself. Strands of loose red hair were gathered back into a semi-presentable bun, laces were re-laced, buttons re-buttoned, and boots were shoved back on her feet. She’d deliberately left the breastband out of the process, though with the way he’d taken the initiative to tear it off with his teeth, there wouldn’t have been much point in trying. 

“I probably should be more annoyed with you for this than I am,” she chuckled as she examined the fabric. “But the fabric was itching anyway.”  


“Lucky you,” he grinned. “Next time, wear the other one that itches. We’ll take care of that problem.”  


She laughed and made a noise in agreement, picking up the glass and the folded letter from where she’d left them moments ago. 

Isenril hesitated slightly at the door. Their goodbyes after a…  _session_ , he supposed would be the right word, never felt quite like something that would—or should—be made permanent. She would be back, after all. Or he’d ask her back. Or they’d meet somewhere in the middle and find each other, which seemed to be the case more often than not lately. Her fingertips barely gripped the doorknob, and her eyes darted back and forth between where he sat and the objects she held. 

“So we’ll leave tomorrow or early the day after,” she said suddenly, looking as though the sounds had been buffering in her throat for the last hour and only just now made it free. “Either way—at the Storm Coast when we need to be. I—you’ll brief the Chargers when you get the chance, right? I mean, I suppose I definitely could, but you know them all better, so…”  


“Don’t worry about my boys, Boss,” he said. “They’ll know what to do on the day. You just worry about clearing it on your end. Red knows, so does Josephine, but knowing either of them they’d probably like some direct confirmation from you directly.”  


She nodded once more, gripping the handle more seriously now. Already, the curve of her shoulders had shifted—there was tension there that hadn’t existed when she was on the bed, or even when she was getting dressed.

“In that case—I’m sure I’ll be seeing you in between now and then but—well,” she said, lips forming a sort-of half smile, “I suppose I’ll be seeing you then.”

“See you then, Boss,” he replied, exchanging a slight nod with her as she made a complete exit. Not down into the Tavern below, but outside onto the barracks. The smallish heels on her boots made a retreating ‘ _tap tap tap_ ’ noise against the stone, picking up in speed the father she walked until the sound has dissipated completely. 

 

* * *

 

 

The days passed quickly enough, and the journey to the Storm Coast was largely uneventful. It rained nearly the entire way, because that was simply the nature of the place, but the sun was bright enough through the stringy clouds to make up for it.

The Bull didn’t mind the rain much. He would’ve preferred the warm rains of the north to the chill that the air carried with it here. Still, it certainly wasn’t as miserable for him as it was for the others. Varric, who’d made no secret about the way he felt towards the drizzle, just as he never did about any other sort of weather. Blackwall, who was looking more like a drowned rug than man at this point. And Isenril, the Boss, who, while not having anything strictly against the rain, had already slipped in the mud twice on the walk to the meeting point from the scout’s camp they’d spent the night in and looked about as thrilled as one could walking around with long smears of wet dirt up the back of her coat.

She paced back and forth in front of the small shivering group. Quick steps, small steps, a pattern that on anyone else would have looked nervous but was normal for her, as he’d discovered quickly. Every so often, she’d rise on her toes and look out over the coast, over the cliffs and beyond, as if the contact they were waiting for would simply materialize out of the mist.

Bull didn’t know who it was, exactly, that he was supposed to be greeting. Ben-Hassrath, sure, but specific names weren’t shared. A sliver of him, the one that he’d been ignoring since the first time he’d stepped over the borders and into the shoes of The Iron Bull, hoped that it wouldn’t be someone he knew. Not that it would make the situation any better or worse, exactly, but, well—

“They’ll be here on time. The Ben-Hassrath don’t let meetings like this hang for no reason.” The words were non-directional. Sort of. Isenril stopped in her tracks momentarily, finally pulling her eyes away from the horizon.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve got no reason to believe otherwise. Still, though, it’s a bit of an intense situation we’ve got here—I’d like to get everything settled before we start out, and the sooner we do the better I’ll feel.” There were no lines of fear etched in the slant of her shoulders, and he liked that. Just a snap behind her teeth, a resolute awareness to her stare that betrayed nothing of the way he’d heard her toss and turn in her bedroll the night before. He liked that too. Even if it was just a front (though he was certain he’d have been able to tell), it was reassuring.

Before he could say anything, he saw a solitary figure approaching out of the corner of his eye. Isenril spotted it too, and simultaneously their heads turned to acknowledge the newcomer.

“Inquisitor,” the elf greeted evenly as he found his place, regarding her with a trained and measured awareness characteristic of the Ben-Hassrath. “And you, Hissrad—good to see you again.” There was a friendly smile on his features, directed more at Bull than at Isenril.

“Gatt!” He laughed, relaxing ever so slightly at the sight of a familiar face. “Last I heard they left you back on Seheron.”

“They finally decided I’d calmed down enough to come back to the world,” he said, flashing teeth as his lips curled into a grin.

“Boss,” he said, touching her lightly on the shoulder, “This is Gatt. We worked together on Seheron.”

“I see,” she said warmly. “In that case, it’s a pleasure to meet you Gatt.” She extended a gloved hand forward in greeting.

“Pleasure is mine, Inquisitor,” he replied as he accepted the gesture. She clasped her free hand over his and shook once before releasing them both. “Hissrad’s reports say you’re doing good work?”

“Hissrad?” She blinked up at Bull, arching one brow, questioning.

“We use titles under the Qun, not names,” he explained quickly, almost as if it was something she should have known coming into this. Or at the very least, something Bull should have shared with her.

“My title was _Hissrad_ because I was assigned to secret work,” Bull supplied, filling in the obvious gaps that had been intentionally left out when Gatt made no more moves to explain. “The direct translation is _Keeper of Illusions_ , or—”

“—Liar,” Gatt finished for him, looking pointedly at Bull. “It means _Liar_.”

He could feel the Boss’s eyes staring thoughtfully through the side of his skull. “I see,” she said with no indication of her reaction to the subject. “Interesting. I’ve never heard of such a system before.”

Bull shrugged. “It’s a Qun thing. And you didn’t have to say it like that,” he grumbled, looking directly at Gatt. On his part, Gatt seemed to willfully ignore the looks being sent his way.

“It’s always complimentary to hear the sweet things people say about you in their secret reports.” She said it lightly, but her tone had shifted ever so slightly. Barely there, perhaps a millimetre from where she started out, but he could hear it. He watched her watching Gatt. Head barely tilted to the side, eyes unmoving and unblinking, her hands now withdrawn and folded just behind her back. He already knew that she’d just decided, for whatever reason, she didn’t care for Gatt. Not enough to make an issue about it, certainly not enough that he would hear about it later, but all the same, he knew.

Strangely, it didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would have.

“Very sweet,” he agreed. “But not exactly secret, are they? Relax, Hissard—I know how things work out here, unlike our superiors. Either way, we’re both here for one thing—The Red Lyrium. The Imperium is bad enough without the Venatori’s influence. And if they get ahold of _this_ ,” he gestured to the area they’d be fighting on soon enough, “The war with Qunandar is likely going to get worse.”

“And that doesn’t sound like it’d be particularly good for the south either,” she said thoughtfully.

“Not at all. If the ‘Vints get ahold of this stuff, they could make their slaves into an army of magical _freaks_ ,” he said grimly. “And if that happens, and we lose Seheron, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge Tevinter invasion marching its way down here.”

“Sounds like the last thing I need to deal with on top of everything else,” she said bitterly. “Nothing for it then—let’s get down to the reason we’re all here having this wonderful chat in the drizzle. Gatt, if you’d be so kind, the details, please.” Polite, and very Inquisitorial, there was no hint of a question in her command— _Josie’s lessons sure have been sticking with her_ , he mused.

“Gladly,” he nodded. “The Dreadnought is out of view and out of range of any Venatori that might be on shore.”

Gatt went on, detailing what needed to be detailed, and Isenril listened attentively. Bull hadn’t been there when the Ben-Hassrath had drafted the plan up, but he could piece together what it was before Gatt had even got the second word out. A few times she would stop him and ask for clarification or confirmation, but otherwise questioned nothing. The Ben-Hassrath had kept the Inquisition on a need to know basis, after all, and they needed to trust that wisdom.

“Is that alright for you, Bull?”

Her voice cut through his stream of thought instantly, pulling him from half-listening to full attention once more.

“Hm, don’t know,” he said reluctantly. “Never liked covering a Dreadnaught run. Too many ways for crap to go wrong. If our scouts underestimated the enemy numbers—we’re dead. If we can’t pin down the mages—the ship is dead.” The muscles in his jaw pulled tighter as he folded his arms across his chest.

“No worse than letting the Red Lyrium into Minrathous,” Gatt replied, a little too smoothly.

Isenril glanced quickly once between the two men. “If that’s it,” she announced, clearing away the silence with a sense of duty, “then we should get into position.”

“Right,” he said. “I’ll go with you, Boss,” he added before she could make the request herself—she wouldn’t have outright, if she had the sense he’d have wanted to stay with the Chargers, even if it was something she’d have wanted herself. “I’ll fill Krem in first, let him and the rest of the boys know what the final plan is. Let me know when you’re good to go and we’ll head out.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “Keep it short—I don’t want to stand around longer than we have to,” she added, though not harshly.

“You got it, Boss.” He didn’t look back at Gatt as he headed off towards where his boys stood loitering off to the side. He could hear the faint conversation of the Boss ensuring their fellow companions were clear on the situation, murmurs of their agreement, and then a slightly sharper tone when she turned back to Gatt. It sounded like she might’ve been asking about Bull, but that might’ve just been the rain and surf messing with his hearing. One can never really tell with these things, after all.

No sooner had he finished relaying the plans to his boys through carefully-concealed gritted teeth did she come up behind them, standing silently as they gave their rallying cry of _Horns Up!_ as they always did before embarking on a large-scale scuffle.

The first small group of Venatori they encountered near the signal spot down the path had been dispensed with quickly and easily enough. A concentrated blizzard stilled them before they could even react to the attack, and Bull gladly took the offered opening. They were good like that. He’d told her once, before he’d stripped her clothes off above the tavern and bit hungrily down her neck and breasts, that he liked how her first instinct was _cold_ —loved it even, since it was the most symbiotic for maximum carnage on his end. None of that ridiculous flame crap that scourged the field and left the stink of rotting flesh in your nostrils for days afterwards. Just ice, sharp and mean and perfectly deadly.

Blades went slack as soon as the last of the ‘Vint bodies shattered across the damp earth.

“I believe that’s all that was around here,” she said, glancing around once more before extinguishing the telltale glow of magic around her hands and staff. “We should be alright to send off the signal now.”

“Right,” Gatt affirmed. “Signaling the Dreadnought.”

The flare Gatt set off went up nearly at the same time as the Chargers’ had down the coastline. He felt a small tinge of pride at the fact that they’d also dispatched their ‘Vints so quickly, even without the Boss rapidly tipping the field in their favour.

The sound of bells cut through the ocean mist. “There’s the Dreadnought,” he grinned. “Brings back memories.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, coming up to hover by his side as they watched it dispatch two shots into the side of the enemy vessel, quickly sinking the ship under the weight of the waves. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that in my life.” There was an underlying sense of reverence, and an intense fascination was held in her eyes. He felt as though they might’ve been watching a sunset together, for all the contentment they both observed the scene with.

“Hah! You saw that right? Nice shot,” he chuckled. He’d relaxed ever so slightly; indeed, the entire operation had gone off even smoother than he ever could have dreamed. _Extra rounds for everyone tonight_ , he mentally noted. This was most definitely worth the celebration later.

The joy was short-lived, however. Isenril tore her eyes away from the ships momentarily, and he heard her suck in a tense breath. “Bull,” she said lowly, grabbing his forearm with more urgency than her voice gave away.

“Wh—Oh. _Shit_.” He cursed through his teeth at the sight of a new wave of Venatori closing in. Not on them, they were too high up from the main beach. On the Chargers, his boys at the other end, too far for them to reach in time to lend aid to.

“Bull,” she repeated again, pressing her fingers deeper into his flesh. “They don’t have a chance if they hold position, but there’s time to sound a retreat still.”

Her eyes were large and her brow was furrowed when he looked down at her and finally away from the evidently doomed scene about to play out before them. _Pleading_ , perhaps, though he doubted that had been part of Josie’s lessons.

“They need to hold that position,” Gatt interjected harshly. “We lose that, we lose the Dreadnought.”

“If they hold, they’re dead.” He practically growled it out as he turned away from the Boss and over to Gatt. She let her grip on him go, but only reluctantly.

“Are they really worth destroying the Inquisition’s alliance with the Qunari?” He retorted, taking two steps forward and into Bull’s space. “You’d be declaring yourself Tal Vashoth!” Gatt had started rolling, and he showed no signs of stopping. “Reports or not, with all that you’ve given the Inquisition half of the Ben-Hassrath already think you’ve turned and betrayed us already! I stood up for you Hissrad, told them you’d _never_ become Tal Vashoth!”

“They’re _my_ men.” It was scathing out of his mouth, the sense of ownership and belonging cutting deep.

“You need to do what’s right, Hissard,” he said with a disappointed shake of his head, looking back over at the Chargers. “For the Alliance. For the Qun.”

Bull grit down on his teeth, hard. This was—it wasn’t unprecedented, but it was never what he wanted, never what he wanted to be faced with. It was precisely why the idea of the Qun settling itself so close to him once more had tied a sickly knot inside his chest cavity that only tightened with each passing moment after the letter had arrived. And now, he felt as though the very same knot was forming itself into some kind of noose. And the longer he took to contemplate just how short that rope was, the less time the Chargers had.

It was the Boss’s voice that pulled him out of it once more, back to reality. “ _Bull,_ ” she said, and it was gentle, so very gentle. Isenril, for all the inner panic she might’ve felt at the moment, was making herself the most solid presence on the cliff’s edge through sheer willpower alone. Another touch to his arm, this time feather-light and unmistakeably soothing. He pivoted away from Gatt and back into her direction.

“Call the retreat,” she said evenly. There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in her words.

_“Don’t!”_

Gatt had tried to cut her off, get the last words in edgewise, but it was too late for his cause. Bull drew the horn to his mouth and blew, only dropping it back to his belt when he saw his boys turn on their heel and leave before the Venatori had begun to climb their hill. “They’re falling back,” he breathed.

“They are,” she said, sounding equally relieved. She wasn’t smiling, but her brow had smoothed out ever so slightly.

Gatt, however, did not share in the feeling of success. “All these years!” He hissed, “All of these years, Hissrad, and you throw it away— _for what??_ For this? For them? _For her_?” He paced back and forth furiously, whipping his glare to and fro between them. “And you—!” He began as he zeroed in on Isenril. The blame was clear, after all. The order to save the Chargers and kill Hissrad in the process had come from the Inquisitor.

“ _His name_ ,” she interjected, voice steely and cool as she stepped away from Bull and towards Gatt, who drew back as she moved, “Is Iron Bull.”

He could have sworn that he felt the air temperature drop a few degrees around her too. She cocked her head, daring Gatt to say something more, to take a step forward and intervene with something he never had any control over to begin with.

“Yeah,” he scoffed, looking as though he would’ve been happier spitting at her feet as he stalked away, “I suppose it is.”

He brushed past them both, and Bull could only begin to picture what sort of letter he’d weave to send back to their— _no, no_ , not their superiors anymore. Just Gatt’s.

It stung.

Isenril exhaled, turning away from the Dreadnought, now engulfed in Venatori flames. Her face softened when he caught her eye, and she bit her lip as though she meant to say something comforting but couldn’t find the right words to convey it.

“When the Dreadnought sinks…” She trailed off as the sounds of Qunari Black Power exploded over the water.

They flinched hard when the final blow rang over the sky.

“Qunari Dreadnoughts don’t sink,” he said, defeated as the still-flaming debris was already floating away from the site of the explosion.

There was nothing to be done for it. The alliance sank along with the ship. He heaved a sigh, already turning away.

“Come on. Let’s get back to my boys.”

“Okay,” she said, one last look at the water, fingers twitching at her side as they brushed together for a fraction of a second. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gatt found them in the yard of Skyhold together. He could’ve done this back on the coast, and Bull knew that he knew it too. This was just to needle away at them both.

“Inquisitor,” he said coldly, “It is my duty to inform you that there will be no Alliance between our peoples. Nor will you be receiving any more Ben Hassrath reports from your Tal Vashoth ally,” he tacked on pointedly.

Bull bristled. “You under orders to kill me, Gatt?”

“No,” he scoffed. “The Ben-Hassrath already lost one good man. They don’t need to lose two.”

Isenril had taken on the same demeanour that she had during their last conversation on the Storm Coast, including the same temperature change. _So it was her after all_ , he thought, mildly impressed at the subtle use of magic to establish the power gap. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that if it came down to a fight, Gatt wouldn’t even be able to touch her if he tried. _Neat party trick._

“Will that be all?” She said with an incline of her head. Somehow, though she stood shorter than Gatt, she seemed to be looking down at him.

His bow was protocol and polite, but the words didn’t match. “I don’t have anything left to say to either of you.”

“Then you’ll take your business elsewhere.”

He did so without argument. She didn’t drop her stance until she was far out of her immediate line of sight, and only then did her shoulders relax once more.

“So much for that,” he muttered.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, glancing up at him with a smile. “I like having forces I know I can trust on my side, no matter the size of the regiment. Besides,” she waved a hand. “I’m proud of you, Bull.”

His pulse jumped unexpectedly and he covered it with a smallish chuckle. “Thanks, Boss.”

Krem walked up to them at that moment. “Good to see you Inquisitor, Chief. Not interrupting any important business, am I?” He asked with a sly grin.

“Not at all,” she said, catching Bull out of the corner of her eye with a sweet smile. “Just discussing the spoils from the Storm Coast. No more Red Lyrium from that shipment—I’d call that a win.”

“At the deep cost of soreness from fighting all those 'Vints,” Krem laughed. “Well,” he added, “That and a cask of Chasind Sack Mead the Chief promised us.”

“Dammit Krem,” he groused, “That’s the sort of thing you don’t have to share with the Inquisitor.”

"Oh?” She grinned. “Not to worry—I think I can keep a secret if there’s a few extra rounds and a spare chair available.”

“I don’t know,” Bull hemmed, giving her an overt leer, “You look like the type to drink a man out of house and home.”

“Is that a challenge?” She joked, giggling still.

“Only if you think you can keep up.” He would’ve winked, but remembered at the last moment how that would come out, what with the eyepatch and all, saving himself from Krem’s vicious mockery later on.

“Right,” Krem rolled his eyes, quashing the banter before they could get into the inevitable puns. “I’ll make sure the Chargers pull out an extra seat. Chief,” he said, turning back to Bull, “You said you still wanted to work on that shield bash today.”

“A bit later,” he said. “I’ve got a few things left to go over with the Boss still from last week.”

She looked at him quizzically but said nothing. Krem shrugged, retreating back to wherever he came from. “Take your time. You know where I’ll be.”

“Same as always, staring at that bard. I know where your chair is.”

Krem sputtered as Bull guffawed, waving his off as he began to walk away. Isenril followed after him.

“Take a walk with me to the ramparts?”

“I—yes, but why?”

“Just something I want to discuss.”

They said little as they climbed to the top at a leisurely. The Boss seemed to deliberately brush up against him every now and then, and he couldn’t say that he minded one bit.

Near a corner, they stopped walking. “So why here, specif—!!”

Her eyes went wide and she let out a noise of surprise as one of the many passing guards made a beeline for them, or rather, for Bull. He knew this was coming, knew that he’d take a few hits, and _ah, fuck_ , there’s the poisoned blade. With a grunt, he threw one of the pair, snatching the throwing axe out of his belt in the process. Said weapon then quickly and firmly lodged itself into the sternum of the second man, who fell to the ground with a gurgling exhale.

“Bull!” She shouted from behind, magic already gathering in her open palms.

“I’ve got it!” He grunted.

“ _Ebost issala, Tal Vashoth!_ ” The one still standing barely managed to get the words out of his mouth before they devolved into a scream as Bull sent him tumbling over the wall without a second thought.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said bitterly, “My soul’s dust. Yours is scattered all over the ground, so…”

“What was that?” She asked, eyes going wildly from him, to the body on the floor, to the place where she’d just watched a man get thrown off the side of Skyhold.

“Sorry, Boss,” he said, “Thought I might need some backup. Guess I’m not even worth sending professionals for,” he spat.

“You knew there were assassins after you?”

“Change in the guard rotation tipped me off,” he shrugged.

“And you didn’t feel the need to tell me because…?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning deeply.

“You’re not exactly a difficult person to read,” he said plainly. “Unless you went through years of Ben-Hassrath training to hide facial expressions when I wasn’t looking—see, just like that,” he finished as she rolled her eyes with a huff.

“I won’t say that you’re wrong but I won’t acknowledge it because it’s undermining my position,” she grumbled, giving him the victory before there was even a challenge. “Let me see that wound,” she said as she moved forward, sounding not exactly annoyed, but definitely not pleased with him either.

“I’m fine,” he sighed. “Hurt myself worse fooling around in bed.”

“Was it poisoned?” She asked with an arched brow.

“Oh, it definitely was. Saar Qamek, liquid form.” She opened her mouth to reprimand him, but he held a hand up and continued. “I’ve been dosing myself with the antidote, it’s fine, or else I’d be going crazy and puking my guts up right about now. It stings like shit, but that’s about it.”

The glare in her eye hadn’t abated. “It seems a tad unnecessary.”

“It wasn’t serious. It was two guys against me. Not a hit, just a formality. Just making it clear that I’m Tal Vashoth.” He exhaled sharply, balling one hand into a fist so tight his nails would leave crescent-shaped wounds. “Tal Va- _fucking-_ shoth.”

“So?” She narrowed her eyes as his head snapped up. “Same thing as what you’ve been doing since you crossed the borders. Just a different title.”

“It’s _not_ the same thing at all,” he snapped, harsher than he meant to. She barely flinched, too concerned with standing her ground, but it was there, and so was the guilt that followed. He went on anyway. “I killed _hundreds_ of Tal Vashoth on Seheron—bandits, murderers, bastards who turned their backs on the Qun, the kind of fuckers that would poison children— _That’s_ what Tal Vashoth are,” he hissed. “And now…” He sighed, deflating. “Now I’m one of them.”

“Oh, don’t _even_ give me that,” she seethed, practically marching forward. It almost reminded him of the anger he’d seen just under the surface not too long ago, only this time, it was less contained, not as concerned with ceremony or intimidation.

“Don’t even start with me,” she continued. “You’re not—You’re _nothing_ like that. You’re The Iron Bull, mercenary captain, agent of the Inquisition, member of the Inner Circle, and a _good man_ on top of it all, with one of the biggest hearts I’ve encountered among some of these, quite frankly, dismal individuals since this whole mess has started up.” Her liquid gold eyes pooled with an absolute fury as the words came passionately tumbling out, not once giving him the chance to protest as she rose in volume and intensity. “So the Qun has decided that you’re no longer with them— _So_? Show me where that diminishes your worth, show me where that changes who you are fundamentally, who I know you as, who your men know you as—you know, people you’ve helped over the literal years you’ve been down here, and not once have you ever strayed and done anything that you just listed off to me—no!” She snapped loudly as he opened his mouth to protest, and automatically he closed it once more. 

“No,” she said again, less of a shout but still with the same weight behind it. “You’re going to stand there, stab wound and all, and you’re going to take this and hear it—you’re a _good fucking man_ no matter what, and they _don’t_ get to take that from you, and I don’t give a damn about what anyone has to say about it, because anyone, absolutely anyone who has met you, or even just anyone who has eyes! They would agree with me, and you _know_ it.”

She was breathing heavily after she finished, arms crossed once more against her chest and he had the sense she has fiercely resisted the urge to jab a finger into his chest to prove her point.

Her words hung in the air. He wanted to say something. He wanted to say nothing. But the Boss—no, not that, _Isen_ was expecting a response. _Isen, Isen, Isen_. He rolled the name around in his head, over and over again, something he’d only heard a few of her close friends call her but could never bring himself to use. It felt right, though. Getting yelled at must have been some sort of rite of passage, he figured that he could use the more endearing form of her name.

“I can live with that,” he finally replied. “I’ll uh—I’ll tell Red what happened. Go get cleaned up.”

“No.” She said flatly, turning on one heel and making for the stairs. The sound of her heels on stone could belong to no one else, and he realized at that moment that he’d pick up on her walk anywhere, even if he didn’t see her for the next fifty years.

“No?”

“You’ll tell Leliana later,” she replied cooly, “But right now you’re going to follow me. I have some salve for the stab wound. It’s a soothing neutralizer.”

He shuffled his feet in place. “You don’t have to do that. I can take care of it myself.”

“ _Bull,_ ” she said, casting a glance over he shoulder, “I’m asking you as a person who cares about you. Please don’t make me turn it into an order.”

His pulse had been irregular since they’d spoke in the courtyard, and he felt it stutter once again. This time, harder. He'd have to get it checked out if it kept up. 

He relented.

“Okay, Isen.”

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! its pornography! 
> 
> at least, a very good chunk of the chapter is lmao. like half-ish? yeah.

The dragon had fallen with a startling amount of ease.

Or maybe it hadn’t, maybe it was just as difficult as the legends led him to believe—it was hard to tell with the roar of adrenaline still coursing through his veins and the blood rushing in his ears. Who could say? And it probably didn’t matter to him as much as he thought it would have—they, with their small group of four, had conquered the scaled scourge of the Hinterlands.

The air was still as the beast finally hit the dirt, a cloud of ash and dust rising above the body as everyone held their breath simultaneously. Cassandra took the pause to down another potion as fast as she could, and Sera was hurriedly wiping the sand from her eyes, nocking and readying more arrows just in case it decided to rise again.

Isen had simply stopped in place, mid-cast. The magic gathered in her palms, as if it too was hesitating and waiting for some sort of release signal. Indeed, her entire body looked like it had frozen in time. Bull had become aware in that moment, that while he stood close enough to her to watch the way her pupils widened and shrank as she tried to focus past the dust, to see that the small drops of blood gathered on her lip hadn’t been from a wound but from the way she dug her teeth into her own flesh in determination, that he was the only one _not_ paying attention to the dragon. It didn’t matter—if it got back up, he’d know soon enough and have time to adjust the grip on his broadsword accordingly.

And then she’d moved. Isen’s eyes went wide, and she’d shouted something unintelligible, excitedly whipping her head around to her companions and laughing as the magic finally flickered out.

The line in Bull’s shoulders relaxed and he finally realized just what she was grinning about, so excited that she was practically bouncing in place— _they’d won_.

 _Ataashi_. The glorious one, now at their feet, about to have its carcass picked clean so that they could all wear dragonskin leathers and use its bones as knives.

Bull threw his head back and laughed, joyful and borderline manic as the realization set it. The legends were nothing compared to the feeling of doing it for real. They seemed pitifully small in comparison, really, because he was fairly certain that there was no language that could fully encompass the glowing euphoria that pressed against his ribs.

The sword—a gift from Isen, for no other reason than she’d once remembered his fondness for dawnstone and decided that while the metal would do no good as a blade, there was nothing bad about having it be part of the hilt—dropped to the ground in its own dust pile as she left her own weapon behind in favour of dashing over at him. In an instant, she was in his arms. No matter how tired his body was, lifting her was effortless. The kiss was, too—breathless, covered in sweat, and smelling like sulfur and metal, she had been cheering as she’d lept into his arms and thrown herself around his neck, and laughing still as she crashed her mouth haphazardly into his.

“We _did_ it,” she breathed, breaking away periodically for air and to voice her disbelief, “We actually—we won!”

“Damn fucking _right_ we did,” he grinned, pulling her in hard once again. It was no secret that Bull got off on this sort of thing—he hadn’t been joking when he’d uttered that one particular phrase right before the fight earlier—but he realized at that moment, as it took almost no time for the kiss to turn open-mouthed and messy, that if it were not for their audience, Bull could’ve fucked her here. He might still—it was barely noon, after all, and there was nothing stopping the Inquisitor from ordering their companions leave for Redcliffe before they did, and really, it wouldn’t be too hard to walk twenty feet to the left and press her against that tree and—

His line of thought was cut off as she finally (and somewhat reluctantly) pulled back. She was still beaming, framing his face with both hands as her chest heaved and she tried to regain herself. “Never doubted us,” she giggled, pressing a few more quick kisses to his face and mouth. He revelled in it while he could, ignoring the pointed glares and clearing of throats from the side gallery.

“What kind of Inquisition would we be,” he chuckled as he finally let her down delicately, “if we couldn’t even solve Redcliffe’s dragon problem.” His arm came to rest around her shoulders, never once breaking contact with her body.

She started to say something in response but was immediately cut off by Cassandra, who probably figured if she didn’t interject something now, she may never actually get the chance. “Probably no better or worse off than we were before,” she said dryly, “and with much less chance for public indecency.”

Sera snickered. “Wouldn’t be any worse than all the times you heard her above the tavern—”

“—Thank you, Sera.”

“—or in the yard, or in the war room, or that time on the ramparts, got a really good set of lungs on her, you can hear ‘em from pretty much anywhere, and oh! What about that time when you got caught in—”

“Yes, _thank you_ , Sera,” Cassandra said pointedly. She rolled her eyes subtly and away from the archer. “As I was saying. _We_ ,” she emphasized, making sure that Sera knew she was included, “will be heading back to the village. I personally do not fancy the idea of resting up in a tent after today, and would like to send the raven back to Skyhold as soon as possible. Inquisitor,” she continued, somewhat more awkwardly, “if you’d—if you need—a _moment_ ,” she sighed deeply, noting the way Isen hadn’t stopped smiling impishly as soon as Sera had started talking, “Then I am more than capable of writing it myself.”

“Why, Seeker,” she said sweetly, eyes dancing with mischief, “how kind of you to offer! You know, now that you mention it, I do find myself a bit tired after that ordeal. You too, right Bull?” That serene smile she wore concealed wicked promise as soon as they were alone in the clearing. He didn’t even bother with such a thing, making no move to hide his delight.

“Absolutely,” he agreed solemnly. “Completely exhausted. Might not see us for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Exactly,” Isen nodded, “Maybe not even until later tonight—you should really get that headstart, no sense in waiting for the rest of the group here.”

Cassandra shook her head and made a small, exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “Incorrigible,” she muttered, but there was no bite behind it.

“Insatiable,” Isen corrected, matching Bull’s leer as their eyes met briefly.

“Whatever that means—if the two of you want us to leave so you can get into her breeches, just say so, yeah? Don’t need fancy words to tells us you’re both gonna come back later all scratched-up and sweaty,”Sera shrugged.

Cassandra looked as though she was going to combust, and Isen hid her laugh behind her hand and a poorly timed cough.

“I take it you’re not planning to stick around for the show?” Bull’s hand had started to drift down her back and into her coat from the aide, searching for a shirt hem he could slip it under. He felt her suck in a quiet breath when he finally found bare skin, and his own anticipation built. Whether she was turned on by the fight itself or his own enthusiasm didn’t really matter.

“Most _definitely_ not,” she said stiffly, gesturing for a snickering Sera to follow for towards the exit of the clearing. In actuality, it must’ve only taken them a few moments to turn the corner and leave the line of sight completely. But to Bull, who still felt the buzzing under his skin combined with the fresh heat of arousal, watching them walk felt like an eternity.

Isen, who was now arching ever so slightly at the touch and shuffling impatiently in place, tried to make conversation in the meantime. “So,” she mused as the retreating forms were almost gone, “ _Taarsidath-an halsaam._ ” Her eyes were simultaneously sharp yet unfocused, pupils far too wide for the level of daylight they were in. 

_Fuck._ It shouldn’t have been as hot as it was. And yet, even if she didn’t know the meaning, the way her lips formed around the Qunlat phrase was doing more things to him than he would admit. “What about it?” 

She tilted her head up towards him. “I heard you shout it before we ran at it—what does it mean?” 

Cassandra and Sera were finally, finally gone. 

“It means,” he said, voice rumbling low and feral in his chest as he turned in an instant and swept her up off the ground with a surprised squeak, “ _I will bring myself sexual pleasure later, while thinking about this with great respect._ ” The moment he realized that they were going to have sex somewhere out here, he’d been looking discreetly for a decent spot and had found one, more or less, against a particularly thick nearby tree trunk. He strode purposefully over, allowing himself a generous squeeze of Isen’s ass as she giggled and nipped at his neck. 

“A shame,” she gasped as she found herself pressed forcefully against the wood, locking her legs as best she could around Bull as he started to make quick work of the buckles on her leather armour and the buttons of the shirt underneath. “A shame that you have to put up with someone _else_ being around for it.” 

“Yeah, real fuckin’ tragedy,” he huffed with a laugh and then muffled it almost immediately as he finished exposing her bare chest, latching roughly onto a nipple and groaning into her skin as her blunt and broken fingernails dug sharply into his shoulders. It was difficult to start undoing the laces of her pants with the way her hips were moving and the fact that his mouth was kept sufficiently busy, leaving a trail of lovingly hard bites and bruises across her neck and chest, but he managed. Isen had her head thrown back in pleasure, loudly proclaiming every new location is mouth found with a gasp or a moan or his name, completely unworried that anyone would hear or see, and if they did? All the more reason for her to put on a show. 

Finally, he managed to work the laces open. She whined as he pulled away, but it would be impossible to completely remove her smalls, the pants, and her boots otherwise, and he really didn’t need anything getting in his way right now. Both boots were yanked off and tossed aside, and she balanced herself with his shoulders while he shimmied her pants and underthings off. Almost off, anyway—one leg got caught around the bottom of an ankle, but since it didn’t obsctruct any access to her body neither of them cared enough to do anything about it. 

Nude from the waist down and shirt opened at the front, Isen took advantage of the pause to roughly pull him back down and into a kiss. There was no hesitance behind it, just teeth and tongues and molten heat. One of her hands had wandered away from his neck down towards his stiff cock, still trapped behind fabric. He broke the kiss when she began to palm him, pressing his forehead to her collarbone with a shuddering groan. He took that same hand and pinned it above her head before she could go further. 

“Not yet,” he said, kissing up her chest to her jaw. “ _Not yet._ ” 

“Why n— _oh!!_ ”

She gasped sharply and swore as he disentangled her remaining limbs and rapidly (but carefully) pushed her higher up the treetrunk. Her legs trembled as they were thrown over his shoulders and her hands immediately scrambled for stability on his horns. She breathed heavily through her nose, biting one cheek as her chest heaved in time. The look in her eyes was pure animalistic need. He levelled a smouldering gaze at her, not breaking eye contact as he pressed one controlled kiss to the inside of her thigh before attaching his mouth to her cunt. 

Isen pitched forward, nearly doubled over as he began to suck directly at her clit. The hands grappling onto his horns had adopted white-knuckled grips as she wailed and mewled. Fruitlessly, she tried to grind and buck her hips into his mouth, but the arms wrapped securely around her thighs made it damn near impossible. 

Under normal circumstances, he would’ve taken more time to open her up—a bit of teasing, two fingers, three, four, maybe have her ride his face a little bit before they got to the main event. Maybe not even then, if he wanted her to be begging and truly soaked for him. But this wasn’t normal circumstances, and neither of them wanted it to be drawn out any more than it had to be—Bull didn’t think that the pressurized, liquid heat that had been running through his veins from the first time his blade penetrated the dragon’s scales would allow for it. And if the way Isen convulsed and sobbed as he roughly began to thrust two fingers inside her in time with the motion of his tongue, she was in a similar boat. 

She barely lasted for a minute like this, and when she does cum, it’s with her thighs clenching around his head in a vice and a shuddering, broken sob as she drops her head even lower and grips his horns with a renewed tenacity. 

Bull pulled back, grinning feral. Nearly every square inch of his face below his eyes was covered with slick fluids. Catching her eye, he noted the way her pupils were blown as he took the few extra seconds to clean off his fingers. His cock ached, but it was worth it to watch the small action yank her out of a post-orgasm stupor and itching for round two. 

Tension left her limbs, the muscles having finally stopped spasming, and she relaxed enough to lean back and look down at him proper. She reached down and brushed a thumb across one of his cheekbones. Lazy, gentle, but still there. There was a hazed-out look to her eyes, barely-focused pools of intense gold that were trained on his face and nowhere else. Hazy, but underneath that, sharp and focused. Her mind knew what she wanted, even if her body was still acting too boneless to obey. 

“If that’s all your Boss gets for bringing down an _Ataashe_ ,” she hummed, teasing and confident, smug smile threatening to split her lips—and _shit_ , was that ever doing _something_ for him—“then I’m disappointed, Bull. Don’t tell me that’s all you have for me after she ruined the leather on this coat.” 

“Smartass,” he grinned, nipping at her fingers as they skimmed over his lips. With that, he dropped her legs down from his shoulders. She arched an eyebrow quizzically but said nothing as she was lowered once more, sliding her hands down his chest as she went. 

There were a few ways he could do this, but he quickly decided on an angle that he already knew the two of them each enjoyed immensely. Both of her hands were gathered and pinned decisively above her head with one of his, and automatically her legs came up to wrap around his waist. In a moment, he would go back to supporting her with his other hand gripping her ass, but right now he was occupied with getting his cock out of his pants and lined up with her entrance. She watched, transfixed as he did so, arching sharply as she began to feel the stretch. 

Bull set up a brutal pace from the start, moving in time to the rapid, reedy noises she made each time he drove into her. His own breaths were rough and raspy, peppered with sharp grunts and low groans if she squeezed just _so_ , or he happened to catch sight of the fucked-out, blissful look on her face and the piercing gaze that stayed trained on him. He bowed his head forward, pressing it into the crook of her neck and bit gently as he inhaled the scent rolling off her skin. Metallic blood, sweat, fire, sulfur, all from the fight. But underneath that there was also juniper, threaded in with low hints of violet, the sweet yet sharp scent of her perfume having lasted the battle (but just barely). Lust, arousal—as if those things had a tangible, describable smell—yet he could, and he tasted them too when he nipped sharply at the skin and ran his tongue over the bites. Magic, of course—electricity, the sharp sensation of cold. A heady mix that he would recognize anywhere. Not good, not bad, but distinctly and wholly _her_. 

She was close. Tensed up, squirming and writhing. Her thighs shook violently with the effort it took to keep them up. “ _Kiss me_ ,” she panted. Her voice was wet and hoarse, but it wasn’t a request. 

She fell over the edge first, but Bull wasn’t far behind. He dropped her hands and wrapped his arms tightly around her trembling body, kissing her greedily through the aftershocks. Instinctively her arms had flown back around his neck as soon as they were free, and refused to let go even after he’d spent himself inside her and began to soften. 

“That a more acceptable reward?” He asked with a chuckle, not quite ready to let her down just yet even though her legs had finally gone slack. 

She gave a breathy, tired laugh as she took the opportunity and pressed her forehead against his. “I’d say it was acceptable.” 

“That's all?,” he scoffed. He let her down gently, slowly, leaning her weight against the tree and began to gather up the effects that were tossed aside. A roll of spare linen bandages would have to do in lieu of a washcloth—walking around with post-sex hair was one thing, but trying to shimmy back into your trousers with cum dripping out of you and down your thighs was quite another. She was good about it, pliant, and he only had to steady her twice. She plopped down as soon as her pants were on, working unhurriedly on her shirt buttons as he straightened himself out. 

“I didn’t just have you screaming louder than the dragon to be called ‘acceptable,’” he remarked dryly as he took a place beside her and slipped one of her boots back on. 

“I’m teasing, relax,” she laughed, lazily extending her other leg for him. “I might even have you carry me back to Redcliffe.” 

“You know, normally I _would_ agree—but I’m sure your legs work just fine after that performance.” 

“Ass,” she giggled, making a half-hearted swat at the hand that held her calve. 

“Watch it,” he laughed, catching the hand and bringing the knuckles briefly to his lips. “Any more of that and I’ll leave you at camp, let one of the scouts walk you back instead.” 

“You wouldn’t _dare_ ,” she gasped, making a show of being mock-mortified at the very thought. 

“You sure about that?” Another grin, another delicate kiss to the knuckles. She made no move to pull it back. 

“Well, I would very much like it if you _didn’t_.” Her tone was sarcastic, but the face was soft and open. “Meet me halfway—help me out of the dirt and we’ll call it even.” 

He hummed, pretending to consider until she nudged his torso with the toe of her boot, one eyebrow raised as if to say _Well?_ He had to laugh—that look had no place on someone who looked as though they plausibly could’ve just walked away from an unfortunate dingy accident, if the dingy had also been breathing fire. 

“Okay, okay,” he finally allowed, pushing off the ground with considerable effort. Ironically, the only thing that had made his knee click after all of that was trying to elegantly squat (and then kneel when that proved awkward) on the hard ground. “C’mere—let’s pretend we made an effort to get back before dark.” 

She took the single extended hand with both of hers, laughing as she was hoisted onto his back, mindful of the sword at his hip. 

“You know I was only joking, right?” She smiled broadly anyway, and if her voice didn’t give it away, he could feel it well enough where she rested her head on his shoulder. “And I’ll have to get you to put me down when we start getting closer—I don’t particularly feel like trying to convince any humans that I’m not dead or in danger.” He couldn’t feel it, but he knew she was rolling her eyes at a small handful of isolated memories. Granted, this time she wasn’t injured, but that didn’t mean that people weren’t still stupid. 

His laugh rumbled from his chest and rattled through her torso. 

“Well, that’s good then. Sure, might be just like carrying a couple grapes now, but in an hour? _You_ might have to be the one carrying me.” 

“You wish,” she snorted. 

“A man can dream,” he shrugged. Redcliffe wasn’t far from here, and he was enjoying the solid feeling that came when she was pressed up against him like this. She hummed for a moment, adjusting herself slightly. Satisfied, she secured her arms around his neck—tight, but not constricting. It was more of a _snuggle_ than anything else, really. She tilted her head up and pressed a tender kiss into the skin just behind his ear. 

“Thank you, Bull.” 

He was glad that she couldn’t see the way he beamed for the next half hour—there was no way she’d let him hear the end of it. 

 

* * *

 It was well past evening by the time they finally sat down in the Tavern. 

They kept a leisure pace to the village, avoiding known bear hideouts or any place that hinted at the need for a fight. Normally, they’d have no problem rushing in, but there was something nice about enjoying the afterglow as the sun dipped low behind the trees, streaking the sky a soft pink and blue. 

A bath had been Isen’s first order of business as soon as they’d stepped through the doors, and it was pretty high on Bull’s list too, if he was being honest. The appeal of being covered in dragon’s blood had tapered off when it started to go dry and sticky. Unfortunately, they’d have to wait for hot water, and instead made do with a handful of washcloths, the small basins meant only for faces, and a fresh change of clothes. It was better than nothing, and she’d even taken a minute to brush some of the more prominent snares from her hair before heading downstairs. 

It was late, but they still had a good few hours before the tavern stopped serving drinks. Presumably, Cassandra was already in bed. He had no idea where Sera was, and save for a few other smallish groups gathered around tables, it was just them. 

_Maaras-lok_. He’d brought it along in his pack, to crack the seal in celebration after what, in his opinion, was the best fight he’d ever experienced to date. If the rest of his party had been around, he’d have poured some out of them too. _Oh well—their loss_ , he thought blithely as he waved Isen over. 

It was a small alcove off to the side that he’d selected, mostly out of the way and out of sight. Not that it was difficult to sort out who they were based on context clues, but the illusion of privacy was nice. She lit up as she caught his eye from across the room and made her way over, hopping right up into the chair he’d pulled out beside him. 

“Inquisitor,” he greeted as she made herself comfortable. “Almost had me worried I’d been stood up for a minute there,” he grinned. 

“Yeah, well, putting on a shirt tends to add a few extra minutes to the ready routine,” she shrugged. 

“Hey, there’s a lot of time that goes into this look.” 

“I’m sure,” she chuckled. And then, taking notice of the large bottle filled with a swirling dark liquid and labelled with a text she wouldn’t understand, “What’s that? Top shelf special for our victory?”

“Something like that,” he said as he uncorked the top and began to pour two generous tankards full. Without even getting close to it, you could tell without trying just how potent the brew was. “Brought it along from Skyhold. _Maaras-lok_ , Qunari liquor.” He pushed the second cup towards her when he was done, the bottle itself barely empty a quarter and left open for easy refills. 

Isen peered into it dubiously, blinking a few times as the strong scent hit her nostrils. “This isn’t going to kill me, is it?” She asked flatly, hesitating to take the first drink.

“I can think of worse ways to go out,” he shrugged. “Like, say, getting our asses kicked today, just for an example.” 

“True enough,” she chuckled. “So—a toast then?” 

He raised his tankard in the air—though not so high that she would have to stand to clink hers against it. “To killing a dragon, like warriors of legend!” He declared with a rumbling, satisfied laugh. The maaras-lok went down with a scorching burn. For Bull, at least. On her part, Isen had taken a fraction of the gulp he had before she started hacking. 

“I’m not sure,” she coughed, pounding her chest a few times, “that I’ll have any intestines left after tonight.” 

“Yet here you are, going for a second drink,” he chuckled, before tapering off into a coughing fit of his own. 

“I’ve got something to prove,” she said lightly, wincing only slightly as she downed more of the liquid. 

“Being?” 

“I’ll let you know if I figure it out before I finish.” 

He let out a sharp _Hah!_ at the wry remark. “That was really something else today—the way the ground shook, the smell of the fire burning everything, and that _roar_ —what I wouldn’t give to roar like _that_.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” she mused, swirling the liquid in the cup with interest. “I’d say you came fairly close later in the day.” 

“Mhmm,” he agreed, matching the particularly impressive swig Isen took as he did. “ _Taarsidath-an halsaam._ ” 

“ _Taarsidath-an halsaam_ indeed,” she grinned, nudging his leg suggestively with hers. It wouldn’t go anywhere right now, and certainly not if she intended to keep up at the pace she was going. His Inquisitor was a woman who liked her drink, but the reality of her attempts at handling large quantities in a single sitting was pushing the boundaries of a lightweight at best. In hindsight, a bottle this size should definitely have been split between more than two people. Already, he could see hints of a flush surfacing on her cheeks. 

“You were right, you know—today was a very, very good day,” she announced happily, leaning gently with most of her weight on his arm. 

“Oh?” He arched a brow as slim, scarred fingers began to tap out an uneven rhythm on his forearm. 

“Plenty of reasons,” she elaborated, pausing the though to bring the tankard to her lips once more. A little more than half was left—and it hadn’t been a small vessel to begin with. Despite looking like she was in physical pain every time she took a drink, she kept diligently at it—and quickly, too. He knew without a doubt, it was going to hit her all at once and that ‘at once’ would probably be coming up sometime in the next twenty minutes. 

“Started off—it was a lovely morning, first of all. And then, there was that fight—completely insane, by the way, but it was good, and you,” she grinned sharply, “looked very, very good out there. I mean sure, maybe I didn’t quite match your level of, well, you know, for the entire thing.” She frowned contemplatively into her liquor, before shrugging it off and taking another drink. “But I was definitely up there. So good fight, great sex, nice evening, and it’s all capped off with some good drinks. Wait, no, I take back the adjective. Good is up for debate. But it _is_ burning significantly less than when I started.” 

“That’s the nerves dying,” he chuckled. “It’s something else though—really puts some chest on your chest.” 

“I’m going to pretend like I understand the words in the order you used them instead of just separately,” she said with confidence. “We should—let’s toast again, I’m almost done here. I want to do it fast like a shot.” 

“Shit, you really didn’t mess around there—you good?” He was fully prepared to catch her when the inevitable loss of balance hit. 

“I,” she said, “am doing perfectly well, _thank_ you.” 

“In that case—to _dragons_!” he cheered, thrusting the tankard high and taking another vigorous swig. 

“To The Iron Bull!” She followed quickly and equally loud, with a giddy laugh as she finished the last dregs of the maraas-lok. The empty tankard was slammed back onto the table victoriously, signalling both her pride at the questionable achievement and the fact that he maybe—probably—no, he most certainly did underestimate how the drink would affect non-Qunari. 

_Ah, fuck it_. What’s done was done, and he was cutting her off after that anyway. Only now was he starting to feel his own buzz pleasantly bubbling up at the back of his skull—warm and hazy, he let himself sink into it more than he normally would have. They were the Inquisition, after all, and they’d just slayed a dragon. Nothing could touch him right now. “ _And_ his ass-kicking Inquisitor,” he added, giving himself that extra toast to finish his drink. 

She giggled as she hooked both of her arms around one of his, collapsing into him more than anything else. “I am going to be _so_ hungover tomorrow,” she laughed. “I don’t think—this is the fastest I’ve ever been this drunk, assuming I actually have been this drunk before? I have no idea. This one time, I think I was somewhere near Denerim, I don’t actually remember, I went on a week-long bender with a few people I’d met in town—did you know I’m still banned from several establishments there? I have _no_ idea what I did,” She laughed again, letting her eyes drop closed completely as she hid her smile against him, but only for a few moments. 

“Bull,” she began, raising her head so that her chin was still resting on him. “It was a good day for you, wasn’t it?” She was peering up at him from under dark lashes and messy makeup that she hadn’t cared enough to fix properly before meeting him downstairs. For a change, the hair had been left loose outside of Skyhold, and it fell across her face in deep-red whisps. Her thumb had found the pulse line on his wrist and was rubbing it absently. 

“Believe me,” he said, moving errant strands gently aside and out of her eyes. “Believe me, Isen, when I look at you and say it’s been one of the best.” And it was—he’d never meant anything so sincerely in his life. And on some level, that was frightening. On another level, the warm, wiry body beside him that had turned its face into his palm to press a trail of easy kisses across it helped mitigate the feeling ever-so-slightly. 

“Good,” she declared against his skin, “I’m—I’m glad to know that. And I hope that there’ll be more.” 

They talked lowly and kept to each other after that—the last booming toasts having gained some pointed glares from the other patrons. Bull felt, for the first time in a very long time, genuinely at peace. Oh sure, the world was still ending, and a demon ‘Vint from the dark ages wanted them all dead, that was all still very true. But it somehow didn’t exist here. In a corner of a tavern in Redcliffe, the noise faded around them as the candles began to flicker out, and they were the only two people in the universe. Isen stayed on him the entire time, and he let her—mostly holding onto his upper arm where he rested his elbows on the table, but sometimes she’d move under and threaten to topple into his lap. That also would’ve been something he allowed, but she always seemed to stop herself at the last moment and return to her previous position. 

He felt the overwhelming urge to kiss her the entire evening. 

Not like at the clearing. Those kisses—while excellent in their own right—were intense, wet and hungry, searching with teeth and tongues and fire and trying to consume as much as possible. He was thinking of a different kind of intensity now, the soft, slow feeling that came when one focused on nothing but the other person. They hadn’t done anything like that, but he could imagine it with her. Isen would be pliant against him, as she often was, but she would be focused. The sinew of her body would bend into him, meshing into a perfect fit. Her hands would wander, because she was never still when she wanted something. They’d frame his face, run down his neck and shoulders and chest and then back up again. He would pull her in closer, if it were even possible, tilting his head just so, chasing sensation and sensuality, and she would follow. 

Huh. Perhaps he’d thought about that scenario more often than he realized. 

She exhaled slowly beside him, and he felt her growing slacker as the seconds ticked on. Maaras-lok, as it turned out, seemed to have a similar effect on her as a red wine would have. Loose, happy, clinginess that eventually tapered off into sleepy affection and then real sleep. The only difference was that the alcohol content of this was probably somewhere near an entire rack.

“Still with me?” 

“Hanging on,” she chuckled tiredly, blinking at him contentedly. “You’ll definitely have to navigate my way upstairs for me.”

“Yeah, I’ve got you,” he said. There was a sense that the moment was ending, somehow, even though it would probably take a good ten minutes to actually enter their rooms. His buzz hadn’t died down in the slightest—in fact, he felt comfortably tipsy still—but comparatively, he was stone-sober. Which is why he really didn’t forsee the words that seemed to leave his mouth of their own accord. 

“Hey, hey, Kadan—”

_Aha. Well, shit. Fuck. Shit._ _Shi—it._

He stopped himself before the thought finished, whatever it was going to be. It wasn’t—they weren’t—this was supposed to be fun, wasn’t it? Oh, yes, The Iron Bull liked Inquisitor Isenril Lavellan very much—very, _very_ much—but that was as far as it went for both of them.He froze, watching the line of her mouth, the slightest curious twitch of her eyes, ready to deflect the innocent _What does that mean?_ that followed each casual use of their respective native tongues. 

It never came. 

Bull relaxed physically, exhaling the sudden tension away as the only reply he got was a foggy _Hmm?_ from somewhere near his elbow. 

“I was just gonna say, we’re always out keeping the world from going ass up all the damn time—I never have a chance to tell you, you’ve got _fantastic_ tits.” 

_Nice save, jackass. Seamless._

She dissolved into a fit of quiet laughter. “You’re sweet,” she said warmly. “Take me and my fantastic tits upstairs?” 

That, he was sure he could manage. 

 

* * *

Manage he did. Sort of.

She insisted on trying to walk at first, and who was he to deny her? It lasted all of ten steps, each taken with her leaning heavily on him for support. Likely it didn’t help that she couldn’t stop laughing every time the room spun (which was the whole time) and had to make frequent stops to regain her spatial sense against furniture. When he’d confirmed several times over that she did not, in fact, feel nauseated in any way, it was a simple matter of gathering her up into her arms and stopping her from trying to roll out. It was still extraordinarily slow-going, but they made it. 

He deposited her gently on the bed. Isen flopped back and let him remove her daywear, draping it over a chair in the corner. She gave up on trying to slip into the cotton tunic she’d brought for sleep, and instead elected to crawl into bed wearing the shirt she had been from before and her smalls. 

“I’ll deal with the hair in the morning. And my face. And the headache I’m anticipating,” she shrugged, making herself comfortable under the quilted bedding. She quietly watched him leave a full glass of water on the nightstand and move to snuff out the candle. 

“Wait,” she said as she grabbed his wrist, struggling to prop herself up for a moment. 

“Something wrong?” he frowned. 

“Yes—no. Come here.” She let him go, and patted the largely empty space on the bed. “Can you—stay? Will you stay here if I wanted you to?” 

His breathing felt shallow as he considered. “That what you need?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then I’m here.” 

He extinguished the small flames and made his way around the bed in the darkness. He left his daywear folded on the chair next to hers. It really just consisted of boots, the harness, and his brace. Carefully, he took his place beside her, though there was no need for the caution. As soon as Bull’s weight settled in the mattress, Isen moved, arranging herself around him. The hair on her head tickled his jaw as she slung an arm across his body, nuzzling her cheek into his neck. He realized very quickly that it would be more comfortable if he were to wrap a heavy arm around her shoulders, instead of trying to position it oddly on the side. He did, and felt her tighten her own hold. 

This was—it was good, he realized. This was nice. Warm, serene, the sounds of the late night starting to give way to an early morning on the outside of the walls, the Inquisitor’s breathing slowing down and deepening, already drifting off before they’d even had a chance to say goodnight. It was good, he thought again, and even if she was pissed tomorrow for the hangover—he could always remind her that she had fun, and really, she couldn’t disagree. A small part of him worried that she would, somehow by some miracle, remember _Kadan_. 

It wasn’t a secret word. It wasn’t even necessarily a romantic one, but it wasn’t something that had ever popped into his head in reference to—well, to anyone really. And certainly never something he’d said out loud. There was never any reason to. 

_Kadan._

_Kadan, Kadan, Kadan._

No, he decided, no reason to. As long as they were—whatever they were—Kadan could stay where it was. That is to say, not here, and not with her. 

(Even though he hadn’t been able to stop looking at her face since they’d crawled into bed, trying to make out details in the dark, even though _Kadan_ had snaked its way into his head every time she shifted in her sleep and pulled him closer.) 

He tried to look at the positives—if she asked, he could explain it, as the broad term it truly was. Minimize it. Blame it on the drink. Risk watching that same strange, sad expression cross her face before she switched the subject, like she did whenever _Boss_ came up outside of a professional context. And if she didn’t, if all she could remember was the headache, then, well, that would work just as well too. 

Wouldn’t it? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u very much for sticking with me this long, tbh im surprised ive kept inspired for the project because ive never tried anything like it yet? but im gonna see it through for sure, because i really love working on it. as always i wanna hear what you have to say, especially now that we're getting into meatier bits lmao. let me hear those thoughts!!
> 
> <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy tuesday yall writing the end of this chapter nearly made my heart swell out my damn chest

The days leading up to any sort of large-scale assault always carried such an uneasy sense of peace with them. It had been that way on Par Vollen, and it was the same in the Inquisition. Nearly everything was ready for the journey to Adamant Fortress, save for a few last-minute preparations that they’d be wrapping up over the next thirty-six hours at most. And then it would be time to see what the Wardens were up to. 

Bull had gone over his own checklist twice, just to be sure, and found that he was more than ready to depart whenever everyone else was. Though his boys had wanted to be there too, the Inquisition had need of them elsewhere. He killed time in the training yard with them for now, trying to instil the proper blocking technique in Krem—though if the way Dalish snickered from her place perched on the fence and nudged Skinner every time they ran it again was any indication, it was probably in vain. 

It didn’t really matter—Bull’s mind was only half-present in the ring anyway. He woke up in the Inquisitor’s bed that morning—which wasn’t unusual as of late, and that was precisely why it was still at the back of his head. He rose just before dawn like he always did,  a conditioned response from years as a Ben-hassrath. Isen’s eyes had cracked open around the same time, and she rolled into him, lazily wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him awake. It was _nice_ , and he thought nothing of kissing back for a few sweet moments before they kicked each other out of bed to start the day. And that was just the problem—it was nice. It felt oddly natural. New, definitely. Bull could count on one hand the number of times he was the one staying the night in someone else’s room after a tumble through the sheets. It was almost always the other way around. That still happened too, of course. She had no problem crawling into his bed if that was easier or quicker and waking the next morning as if that was where she expected to be. And that felt the same. Just as ordinary, just as sweet, the same sort of feeling that slipped naturally and unobtrusively into his life. Hell, she’d even started to leave more and more of her things in his room as time went on. At first, just a hairbrush and a few grooming products. If he looked around today, he would see boots, sweaters, a few volumes of tomes left behind, piles of trinkets that had already begun to collect dust—and he couldn’t say he wasn’t guilty of the same thing in her quarters either. Change of clothes, horn balm, extra ankle brace. They’d been leaving bits of each other in their respective territories for months now, silently of course, and it still all fit somehow. 

And that was what was catching at the back of his skull. He would be the first to admit, he mused as he nearly knocked his lieutenant over once more, that he was hardly the most experienced person on the continent with serious relationships. Sex, he knew. Sex with friends, sex with strangers, these were territories he practically owned. Add emotions into the mix, and things got complicated. The Qun didn’t have a doctrine for that. 

Whatever he had with his Boss was… arguably more than just sex. They were friends, good friends, but on the mornings where he woke up to her body curled into his and a trail of slow kisses that eventually found their way to his mouth, the space their relationship occupied became blurred and transient. That was usually when _Kadan_ would start to tug at him again, threatening to come spilling out like it did months ago in Redcliffe. If he ever started to believe in a Maker, it would have been at the exact moment he realized she didn’t remember a damn thing past the first half hour of drinks from that night. There was no translation asked for, the only thing she needed from him was to bring her some more water and close the damn curtains. He forced down the mixture of relief and odd disappointment the memory brought as he cracked shields with Krem once more. 

“Not bad,” he huffed, drawing back. “You might actually be starting to catch on to this. And it only took you the better part of the year.” 

Krem rolled his eyes, wiping his damp brow with the back of his free hand. “Whatever you say, Chief—my blocking is good enough to keep me from getting a knife in the gut and that’s what really matters here.” 

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” 

Bull craned his head around at the sound of the new voice. Isen was leaning against the fence, resting her chin on her hand and chuckling. She must’ve only just got there, though she was standing comfortably enough that she might as well have been resting in place since they started. 

“Your Worship,” Krem greeted easily. “What makes you so sure?” 

“Well, who’s to say that the swords you’ve tested it against aren’t just unskilled? Luck _can_ carry a man pretty far, you know,” she laughed. 

“She’s right, Kremsicle,” he added pointedly, and she laughed again when Krem scowled. 

“We’ll see about that—good enough that I’m still standing against you, Chief. Unless, you’re the one the Inquisitor is talking about?” 

Now it was Bull’s turn to scowl as Krem looked back at him, smug. 

“As entertaining as watching this exchange is,” she chuckled, “I need to steal the Chief for a moment.” 

“Keep him,” Skinner added, dry but amused as he propped the shield up and exited the ring. “This is getting painful to watch.” 

Isen nodded sagely. “I take it Krem has the higher score, then?” 

“Yes.” 

“ _Alright_ , alright,” he grumbled, “That’s enough—from _all_ of you,” he added, obviously addressing the still-snickering Krem. “Pair off, and keep working at it until I get back.” 

“If you two even _make_ it back,” Krem said under his breath, covering it was an obvious cough but making sure that everyone heard. 

“You say something back there, Krem?”

“Not at all, Chief,” he grinned, innocently holding up two hands. “Just, uh, hope whatever you talk about is informative, is all.” 

“Assholes,” he shook his head as they finally turned away and made for the ramparts. It was quieter up there compared to the bustle of the grounds. Not private, certainly, but more peaceful by a leap. 

“They just like to keep you on your toes,” she said, hiding a laugh behind her hand when he shot her a look. “What? It can’t all come from me, you know.” 

“I don’t know about that, you seem to handle it just fine on your own.” 

“I like to maintain the illusion of having many things handled, Bull. You included.”

He let out a sharp laugh. “Can’t really argue with that one.” 

“You really can’t,” she said, lips twisting into a subtle smile. 

He looked at her closely as they made it to their destination—a corner that was known to see less foot traffic than the rest of the walls. She leaned over the edge, resting heavily on her elbows. Her hair was pulled back low and loose, instead of the usual tight bun she had for Skyhold dealings. She’d forgone any sort of makeup this morning, and her eyes looked inexplicably tired. He joined her in resting on the wall, wordlessly dropping a hand on her upper back. She leaned into him gratefully. 

“You showed up pretty quick out of nowhere back there,” he drawled. Whatever she wanted to talk about was weighing on her, clearly. Small talk couldn’t hurt. 

“I was checking in on something at the requisitions desk,” she said, idly pulling at a thread that had come loose on her sleeve. “A few necessary supplies, some frivolous things people wanted if they could be spared, nothing out of the ordinary,” she shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I just needed to get outside for a bit. This whole thing with the Wardens, trying to get it all in order—it’s…”

“Suffocating?” He guessed as she trailed off. 

“Definitely that,” she agreed. “Stressful too. It’s not that I don’t think we can pull it off. You can’t really get more prepared than hopping a year into the future and grabbing all of the information so that we know what to avoid.” She paused, frowning. “Of course, that’s probably also what’s putting me more on edge about everything. I _know_ what happens if we fail,” she sighed, staring over the mountain range. “And that’s not really the kind of thing I can just— _leave_ behind.” 

“It’s not,” he agreed, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “And it’s also exactly why no one is going to see it happen this time.” 

She talked about it very little at first with anyone, save for Dorian who had been there and seen the whole catastrophe himself. Bits and pieces were revealed as time went on, in quiet moments where she became oddly reflective and sombre. This included the parts where she’d run into the people who came to Redcliffe with her, how she’d seen them corrupted and later dead before snapping back in time to where no of it ever came to pass. Bull didn’t think too hard on the fact that he’d been a part of that group, but knew, at least, what it was like to watch someone you cared about crumple to the floor in a spray of blood and steel. 

“You’re right,” she smiled tiredly. “Of course, I know that. We’re as prepared as we can be at this point. Hawke and Stroud even decided to leave with us instead of getting there a few days before.” 

“Even after that… whatever it was she had with Cassandra?”

“That _was_ ridiculously awkward, wasn’t it?” She chuckled. “I mean, I suppose it was polite for her to try and smooth things out a bit for Varric’s sake and try to prove that she wasn’t the best choice for the Inquisition, but…” 

“The look on the Seeker’s face the whole time,” he grinned, “was really something else.” 

“I didn’t know humans physically could look that purple.” 

“I don’t think she did either.” 

“What about you?” She turned towards him, glancing up curiously. “I know you’re probably fine but—this whole thing, what are your thoughts?” 

“I think,” he started, pushing a piece of hair that the wind had loosened behind her ear and letting his thumb linger on the scar that curved up, sitting just above her jawbone. “It’ll be fine. Whatever’s going on with the Wardens and Corypheus—we’ll sort it out. You told everyone that we were going to make it happen,” he said seriously, reminding her of the briefing she had given the Inner Circle. His other hand had moved from her back to the other side of her face, cupping it gently and keeping her from looking away. “And you will.”

Her brow furrowed, worry lines appearing on her forehead. “You really believe that, don’t you,” she said softly, clasping her hands over his much larger ones. 

“Look, if being along for this shitshow has taught me anything so far, it’s that when you say you’re going to do something, that the Inquisition is going to deliver? It delivers. I don’t know if that’s because you’re getting more stubborn or just spending too much time around Viv—” She interjected with a fond scoff, but let him continue. “—I don’t know. But it works. And it’ll keep working. I wouldn’t doubt you for a second.” 

“I’ll have to make sure I’m around long enough to hold you to it.” The worry eased itself off her face, though it wouldn’t disappear completely. She slipped her arms around his waist and let him envelop her completely, leaning down to rest his chin on her head. When they parted finally, they still kept one arm wrapped securely around the other. The tips of her fingers found the ridge of an old keloid scar. 

“Good enough reason as any to kick some ass and see it though.” 

“Mhm,” she chuckled, “the only thing keeping me from ending it all sometimes is the burning compulsion to prove myself right in any situation. And, well, this too of course,” she added with a smiling glance his way. 

“Good to know I’m right up there with motivational spite for you.” He smiled softly at her anyway. The kiss he pulled her into was easy, even if he had to fold over somewhat awkwardly down to her height, which was still unbelievably small in comparison even if she craned her neck and stood on the tips of her toes. No heat or teeth, just a sweet warmth that blossomed under his ribs and spread throughout his chest. He couldn’t help but grin into it as he felt her smile against his mouth. 

“Hey,” she giggled, pulling away just in time for a pair of officers to round the corner. He wondered if it was simple coincidence, if she needed to get the retort out before she forgot, or if it was something else. Regardless, she made no move to disentangle herself completely. 

“I’ll have you know that I think very highly of my spite—it’s gotten a lot done around here. An honour, really.” 

“Have to keep that in mind the next time I try to compliment you.” 

“Please do,” she laughed. They said nothing then, the altitudes and weight of the air bringing nothing but an all-encompassing silence with it. “I’m glad,” she said finally, “that even with everything, I’m still allowed to just… drag you away for a minute and hear something like that and know that it means something.” 

“Sure,” he said. “It’s what we talked about, remember? Making this easier on you, being exactly what you need—that’s my job. Gotta keep those Ben-hassrath skills sharp.” 

She raised an eyebrow plainly, mouth twitching imperceptibly. “That’s not really what I—well, of course, I know that but—” The thought seemed to be caught incomplete in the back of her throat, like she couldn’t really figure out the best way to finish the phrase because she didn’t know how it ended herself. He found himself frowning slightly as her fingers on his back stuttered in their circular rhythm. 

He supposed, for all intents and purposes, they were serious. It hadn’t really been put outright in conversation, but Bull had stopped fooling around with the servers and the occasional curious Chantry Sister as he did at Haven. He still looked, of course—Skyhold had a coincidental habit of employing those who just so happened to be extraordinarily easy on the eyes. But that was about as far as it went, perhaps a flirty line or two at most. It hadn’t really been a conscious decision, it just sort of fell that way. The time he spent with Isen had started to cut into the time he would’ve normally allocated to such activities. And instead of feeling the desire to change it back, he’d sat there and let her eclipse the others more and more until they barely registered as options anymore. It didn’t take a spy to notice that she’d also stopped disappearing during drinks for fifteen-minute intervals after making eye contact with some nobody across the room. In that, he supposed they differed. The Bull liked to draw the game out, tease a little before going in for the kill. Isen approached a casual fuck like it was a business contract, quick and neat with no room for frills. He didn’t think much of it, but the fact that she’d even allowed him to conduct his dance with her in the first place was… unusual. At the very least, it didn’t fit with her normal approach, and the dull realization—or maybe it was simply something that he was _letting_ himself realize after all these months—was a tentatively exciting one nonetheless. 

“That’s not the only reason I keep coming back to you, you know.”

She was looking at him expectantly, eyebrows barely raised and lips slightly parted, forming a delicate almost o-shape. The expression was one of guarded hope, he quickly registered. Without his consent, his heart gave the smallest jump—it wasn’t enough to mean anything, he quickly reminded himself before he could respond and end up with a repeat of Redcliffe. Because in spite of things like this, in spite of waking in each other’s beds, in spite of checking the word _Kadan_ sometimes multiple times a day, he was no fool. While she might’ve spurned the title of Herald, there was no telling what sort of ramifications could come from openly acknowledging a relationship with a Qunari Spy (or a Tal-vashoth, depending on who you asked and who cared enough to get the terminology right). 

She was a sharp, shrewd woman who was getting better and better at playing the nobility and the masses alike as the days went on. It was one of the things that he found himself liking the most about her. It was also the very reason he refused to let himself even consider anything past what they were now, why he knew that no matter how pleasant things were, one day, it would have to stop. 

Of course, this entire line of thought took roughly four seconds for him to process in that moment before he’d decided on an ambivalent enough response. It was also precisely enough time for a brand new interruption to come scurrying around the corner, effectively rendering whatever he was going to say moot. It was a very good thing indeed that the Ben-hassrath had trained involuntary facial expressions out of their agents, or Cullen would’ve found himself on the receiving end of a rather nasty glare. 

“I—oh! Am I… interrupting something?” Cullen looked at them curiously, but mostly at Bull, at the way they were still linked. 

She eyed Bull one last time before turning to address Cullen. “Not anything that can’t be picked up later,” she replied shortly, making the most minimal effort to hide the mild irritation. On a professional level, there were no issues with any of her advisors. Still, it was a running joke that Cullen was the least favourite child of the three. It was a position that only seemed to ingrain itself deeper after she’d spent a few days speaking on and off with Hawke. 

“Right.” He cleared his throat casually, finally dropping his arm from around her. The newly formed space between them suddenly felt like an endless chasm, and he caught her blinking down a few times at the now-empty place his hand was resting. “I was just finishing up here, anyway. The Boys are still expecting me back in the courtyard. See you later, Boss—you know where I’ll be.” 

His retreat was leisurely. Her own goodbye had been stiff, but also accompanied by one last touch to his forearm before she turned back to Cullen and prepared to listen to whatever it was he absolutely had to come find her for. Bull found himself thinking back on Redcliffe once more, and how the next morning he’d been disappointed yet relieved that nothing had come of it. It was similar, now. Tiny, so small he could pretend it didn’t exist, but there was a part of him that had hoped the end of that conversation would have been… _something_. Something deeper and more, perhaps, than whatever they had now. And he was Tal-vashoth now, wasn’t he? He was allowed to want. No matter how improbable it might be.

 

* * *

Adamant had shaped up to be a right and proper shitshow.

Not so much for anything the could have done differently—by all means, the plan of attack had gone smoother than expected, and along the way they’d even managed to turn a few of the non-indoctrinated Wardens to their cause. 

No, it had more to do with the rift they’d fallen through after chasing that prick Erimond and ending up on the receiving end of a—well, it _looked_ like an Archdemon, and it was clearly from Corypheus, so an Archdemon it was. And it was undoubtedly the reason the stone they were standing on collapsed, and why the sensation of having the earth ripped out from under you and falling so quickly the air gets knocked out of your chest and you can’t even scream was now squarely in the slot just below ‘Demonic Possession’ on the list of things Bull could say he actively feared. 

He _supposed_ , he thought as he groaned and slowly rose up from his place on the ground, that he should have been grateful Isen had the idea to save their lives by opening up a rift to swallow the group. He didn’t feel overly grateful as his body cursed in protest with every movement. The impact—while survivable and softer than the one he expected to have—was still rough enough that he had to take his time. He’d also had the fortune of landing half in a puddle of shallow, suspiciously warm and green water. And he _really_ didn’t feel grateful when he finally had a chance to look around and deduce where he’d ended up. He swore under his breath, a vile string in Qunlat, as he took in the floating rock, the fog, the general sense of un-earthliness the environment carried. Bull was no mage, claimed no talent or interest in magic and was content to stay on the peripheral of those who decided to play between worlds. But this couldn’t be anything other than the Fade. 

Swearing again, he checked his pulse at least three times over—very much there and agitated. For him, that was enough of a confirmation that he’d survived the drop. That was a positive, at least. Unfortunately, the negatives seemed to keep piling up. The most obvious being—he was in the Fade. He was _physically_ in the Fade, which was to his understanding, an untamed playground for demons. The third observation, one that he couldn’t yet tell how she should feel about, was that he appeared to be alone. At least for the moment, there were no demons, or the chance that anyone he knew could be possessed. Conversely, he was alone—alone, stuck in the Fade, and probably surrounded by demons that a non-mage had no way of seeing. 

He was clenching his jaw so hard at this point that it may well be permanently stuck there for good. 

Cole had once asked him if he ever worried about a demon standing on the side he couldn’t see from, and the thought hadn’t even occurred to him as a possibility before then. The exchange, of course, made Isen laugh, and she offered semi-jokingly to protect him against anything occult they ran across, demons who stayed in his blindspot especially. He’d grumbled something else, and she’d laughed again, but even if the offer wasn’t serious it still made him feel the slightest bit better. It was campfire chatter after a long day, and on her way to join them she dropped a blanket on his shoulders that they could share. When the air caught a chill, she laced her fingers in with his and they stayed up making idle, peaceful conversation until it was time to sleep. Demon discussion aside, it was a good memory. Nothing like the situation he found himself in now. 

Bull weighed his options. Stay, and he risked vulnerability and potentially being the only one around to fight off whatever lived here. Leave and try to find the group, he might end up meeting something he didn’t want to earlier, his companions from the living world might bypass him completely, or he could remain hopelessly lost and stuck in the Fade forever. Losing his way and fighting in the Fade seemed inevitable either way, he reasoned. He strained to hear anyone nearby, and silence answered. With nothing else to do for it, he selected the direction that would have been north back home, and set off. 

There was no way to relax as he trekked through the ankle-deep Fade sludge, and he didn’t really want to either. Adrenaline kept him alert, and vigilance kept his axe in a bone-tight grip at the ready. If he survived Seheron, he could manage this, at least. 

“ _Hey Chief, let’s join the Inquisition! Good fights for a good cause!_ ” To himself, he imitated Krem. Krem who, thanks to his insistence that they should sign up for the Inquisition, was sort-fo kind-of responsible for him being stuck in this mess. “I don't know, Krem,” he said, dropping his voice back to his normal cadence, “I hear there are demons. _Ah, don’t worry about the demons Chief! I’m sure we won’t see many!_ ” He paused, head swivelling in the direction of a sound, before determining it was just the Fade settling and moving on. He grumbled as his boots became even more soaked with each step. “Asshole.” Krem and his brilliant ideas were going to hear about this when he got back. 

When, and not if, because Bull had already decided that he wasn’t going to rot here, and he certainly wasn’t going to die here. Preferably, no one else would either. 

He just had to find them first. 

He didn’t want to think about where he was too hard, but he reasoned that time probably passed differently here. Or not at all, which was somehow so much worse. Whatever it was, he couldn’t tell just how long he’d been moving, and that was unsettling. It was a small mercy that nothing had taken note of him yet. The place was full of phantom sounds and mists that curled and smoked like they had a body. He didn’t jump at these things because the reflex was long since trained out of him, but that didn’t mean every false positive didn’t make his pulse surge under the surface. 

Rounding another corner, he thought about trying to keep track of landmarks but quickly decided against the idea when the oddly shaped rock he’d selected began to float up and away. Before he could continue his internal monologue of sheer misery, a series of distant shouts drew his attention. 

It was a risk, he knew. The fighting could very well just be demons, but there was also a chance that it wasn’t, and safety in numbers felt as though it would apply in this situation. Tightening the grip on his weapon, he skirted the edge of a small series of craggy rock mounds and found himself overlooking a clearing at the top of a gentle slope. Still half hidden, he took a few seconds to assess the scene below. Demons, naturally, perhaps a dozen but they were small. Quick as they were though, they couldn’t escape the cold and electricity that their target summoned to tear through them. Each spell sounded with a violent crackle and bright flash, and one by one the demons fell and dissipated with a sickening screech. 

The Qunari didn’t believe in the Maker as Andrastians did. But in spite of her being bloodied and filthy and wearing the meanest snarl she could muster, he could almost believe that seeing Isen right now in this hellhole was no less than divine intervention. 

“ _Boss!_ ” He shouted, sliding quickly down to her level and taking out two of the bastards on his way with one well-timed swing. 

Her head snapped over to him as she drove the sharp end of her staff through the skull of the demon that had frozen at her feet. Teeth bared and eyes wild, she made no indication that she was happy to see him in the slightest. If anything, she just looked even _more_ frantic. 

He didn’t have time to dwell on her lack of greeting, or how she’d met his stare with—was that fear? Distrust? Whatever it was, it would only be addressed after things were finished here, and from the way the smallish demons seemed to keep appearing, there was no telling when that would be. Bull focused on cutting down the ones that had started to swarm him, timing his swings like the first one to try and get at least two in one go. They weren’t particularly strong, but the waves seemed endless at this rate. Their best bet seemed to make a break in the pattern and then book it before something bigger came along and noticed the commotion. He was no Fade expert, but it made sense that using magic would attract more magic. Probably. 

Fighting creatures could sometimes be better than fighting other swords. There was no need for the same amount of technique or thought process—a simple rhythm of hit and dodge, and with the way he’d been itching to hit something since he came to, he was absolutely excelling at it. Demons didn’t bleed, but they did leave some kind of _fluid_ behind. It came out in a spray when he cleaved one between the eyes, a gushing stream when he hacked one in half at the torso. He didn’t bother wiping it off of his face. It mixed in with his own sweat as he snarled and charged forward. They barely made a yelp when his kill connected, but behind him in a rain of raw power, the shrieking was enough to drive a man mad. Whatever Isen was pulling out, it was brutal and ruthless. 

They were finally down to the last three. Bull took two cleanly, one after the other. He caught the last few seconds of the other’s fate, its icy carcass shattering into bits as Isen raised a clenched fist. 

That dealt with for now, she turned her attention towards him fully. She didn’t seem overly worried at the possibility of them being swarmed again. 

He’d always thought the staff she carried was funny, in a morbid sort of way. It was topped with a human skull she’d picked up in their travels, etched with amplifying and focusing runes. It was amusing to watch people do a triple take of the weapon when they first encountered the Inquisitor in the field. It was considerably less amusing when it was pointed directly at him, glowing menacingly. 

“And which one are _you_ ,” she asked through gritted teeth. “Another fear demon? Or maybe we’ve decided to mix things up a little bit this time—desire? Envy? Some sort of terrible combination of everything?” She was breathing hard still, hoarse and angry from the fight. Blood had trickled down the side of her face from a wound under her hair, already starting to dry where it was smeared. 

He laughed sharply at the accusations, more taken aback than anything else, because there was nothing funny about what she was capable of doing in a fight. “Wh—you’re fucking with me, right?” He’d already re-holstered his axe, which in hindsight may have been getting ahead of things. He was relatively certain that he wasn’t a demon. But her? Relief at a familiar face aside, the Fade liked to fuck with people. And if this _wasn’t_ a demon threatening him currently with an unblinking, scrutinizing glare, then her reaction was proof enough of that theory, at least. 

“You tell me,” she spat. “What’s it going to be? Real or not? Because after the day I’ve had, I’m really not in the mood for any kind of fucking around here.” 

He held both hands in the air as passively as possible. Blood still rushed in his ears, adrenaline was still passing through his veins from the fight and the tension, but instinct told him that she was just as real as he was. And really, that was all he had at this point. Bull looked at her more closely. Her sleeves were torn in areas, bleeding sluggishly on the forearm—a poultice must have been applied then, but there must not have been much left of it. Her stance was offensive, ready to move, but she was also shaking intermittently as if she was trying to control it. Suspicious and accusing as her eyes were, they were also ringed underneath with smeared and running kohl, the sclera tinged red around the edges. 

“Real,” he said, steadily as possible. The staff shook and dropped a few inches. “Real enough to fall through the rift with everyone else. And to know I hate everything about this place.” 

Her glare softened and it dropped even more, though not completely yet. 

“I know I said I’d be down for anything the Inquisition threw at me,” he continued, “but this Fade-crap wasn’t in the contract. Not a fan.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” she finally breathed, weapon going slack and pulling her stance back into something neutral. “It is you. Thank the gods.” Her shoulders sagged as she sighed tiredly, looking away. “Or I think so, at least. Which is good enough for now, honestly. I don’t even know if I care that much at this point. Believe me, I’ve had it with this place too.” 

He eyed the corpses from their fight littering the ground. Her carnage seemed extra brutal today. “I can tell. You okay?” She made her way over to him and stood for a moment, unsure. “I’m not,” she finally decided, eyes cast far off into the sickening green of the sky. “I don’t—hm. Nevermind.” 

“What?” 

Biting her lip, her brow had creased considerably as she shuffled in place awkwardly. “It’s nothing. Not nothing-nothing, but nothing.” 

“You sure about that?” He was certain now, that she was corporeal. She was close enough that the underlying faint scent of perfume reached him, but he still hesitated to touch. She started to make her way up the slope, and he followed closely behind. 

“I’m not,” she replied tersely, and then sighed. “Sorry. Right now I just—I need to process a bit. All of this is… it’s a lot. But I’ll tell you one thing, though. Today’s going to be a very unfortunate day for whatever decides to attack next.” Her mouth was set in a firm, anxious line. Both eyes stared straight ahead, looking for some semblance of a path. 

It was a good enough answer for now. He wouldn’t press. “I’m with you on the second part. The floating mountains and Fade-swamp got old _really_ fast.” 

She laughed gravely. “Don’t I know it. Landed in waist-deep water before I tripped into that pit. Any chance you happened by any of the others on your way here?” 

He shook his head. “Just us so far.”

She _tsk’d_. “Of course. That’s perfectly in line with the rest of the day. Night. Whenever it is here.” She paused and spun around, scanning their surroundings. “I don’t even—ugh. Where should we even start here?” 

He gave a tired half-shrug. “Don’t think it matters. We could just be going in one big circle and not realize it.” He scowled in the general direction of… well, _everything_. 

“Now there’s a comforting thought.” 

“Yeah, well, sorry if I’m not exactly in the _mood_ for comfort right now.” 

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She was apologetic as she leaned heavily on what could have passed for a large tree stump, if they were back home. “Didn’t even bother to see how you were, just sort of… pointed a weapon at you and went on with it.” 

He joined her at her post, relaxing as best he could (which was to say, not at all). “Not your fault,” he grunted. “And not the first time I’ve been on that end of things either.” 

She choked out a weak laugh. “Still though—are you alright? I know this isn’t really an ideal for you.” 

“It’s not,” he agreed. “Probably gonna have some crap to unpack later. But I’m fine for now.” 

“You’d tell me otherwise?” 

He didn’t have to think about it. “Yeah. You know that.” 

“I do. But nothing makes sense here. It’s like the entire place is just designed to be awful.” Her head dropped, and she fell silent. 

He couldn’t argue with that at all. At the very least, there was no doubt that the things here weren’t for real live people. 

“They found my father,” she blurted suddenly, head still lowered. He watched her carefully, saying nothing. 

“Not the real him. He’s—he’s long dead. Not here at all. But they got into my head somehow. Or maybe I let something slip in the confusion, I don’t know. You couldn’t hear it since it wasn’t for you but for me…” She turned to face him, eyes freshly glassy, and he understood immediately why she reacted to his sudden appearance with hostility. “They had his voice, Bull. The words weren’t his, but the voice was, and I—” Her voice cracked, and she took a deep, steadying breath. “They weren’t strong enough to find his shape, but they were trying. It was… horrible. Disgusting. Violating. I’ve never—I’m not an angry person. At least I don’t think so. But the _second_ I heard that, I just—” 

She paused again, blinking hard and gathering bits of herself to continue, the rest of the words tumbling out in an unfiltered rush. “I last saw him alive when I was barely ten. I thought, at least the last memory was a good one, right? The last words were cheerful, _right_? That’s something to hang on to, at least, because there was nothing else I could have. I don’t want to give whatever the _fuck_ lives here the satisfaction of taking that from me,” she spat angerly, hands balled into fists so hard her nails cut through her palms. “But now this is the last time I heard him. He doesn’t deserve that. And I don’t have _time_ to have an emotional break right now, we need to move and find everyone else and get out of here and I can’t stop thinking about what happens when we find more demons? Will they be strong enough to wear his skin this time? Is it my fault for not being able to block it out hard enough? I don’t _know_.” 

He didn’t know either. Instead of saying that, he took her hands up in his and gently unfurled the clenched fingers, smoothing his thumb over injured palms. “We’ll deal with it if it happens,” he said finally. “Who knows, could get lucky. They might decide I’d make the better target, pull some crap out of my head instead.” 

“That doesn’t really make it any better,” she smiled unconvincingly. 

“Best I got right now.” 

“I’ll take it then. But that still doesn’t solve our other problem…” 

She trailed off, and he pondered that. There was no way of locating the others, and something like sending up a spell as a flare would attract unwanted attention. He studied their surroundings once more, searching for anything that could help. 

“What about that?” He said finally. ‘That’ referred to the largest rock formation in sight, a craggy, dangerous looking thing with points that almost resembled bits of buildings. 

She followed with her eyes, squinting at the structure. “What about it?” 

“Biggest thing here,” he shrugged. “Makes sense that it’d be the first place they look to, if we’re talking landmarks.”

“Not a bad idea. Not to mention that there really aren’t a lot of options here. And I don’t particularly care for sticking in one stop too long.” 

With the decision made for them, they uneasily set off for the base of the pseudo-mountain. It looked as though it had been cobbled together from parts of the fortress that had tumbled through the rift with them, with gnarled trees and earth that coiled and churned like liquid weaving between it. And of course, being that it was the Fade, the entire thing carried the same sickly-green tint to it that seemed to beg Bull to turn and run in the opposite direction. It was farther than it looked, too, or perhaps the ground was merely stretching itself longer to the sake of their misery. It was a small mercy that the majority of the trek was uneventful, the few minor demons they ran across being dealt with swiftly. In any other circumstance, they would’ve carried on an airy, pleasant conversation while they walked to pass time—he particularly liked starting things off with a groan-worthy pun, which Isen would match with an equally awful one of her own. It would delve into a competition of sorts, the winner being whoever could keep the double entendres going the longest. There was no real score kept, but they more or less never left a running tie. 

Not today, though. The bite in her voice had died down considerably after her outburst when she did answer him now, but it was clear that there was a strain, her mind drifting miles above her body. It was fine, though, and periodically checking in with her gave him something to think about other than his own discomfort. But the long stretches of silence also led to an uncomfortably focused vigilance that bordered on paranoia, and he almost wished that something would come along and break the pattern. 

“So,” he began. They were nearing the clearing at the base of the mound now, perhaps no more than a kilometre off. 

“So,” she repeated. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it wasn’t quite a frown, either. 

“You mages—you visit this place voluntarily?” 

She wrinkled her nose slightly, adjusting the staff strap across her chest. Maybe questions about the Fade were in poor taste right this second, but arming himself with knowledge couldn’t hurt. And he really did know next to nothing about this place. 

“Not like this,” she said. “We can’t go there physically. Or not normally, at least. The rifts are abnormal circumstances, not the kind of thing people usually strive for. As far as I know, we only _should_ be here when we’re unconscious and our bodies are safe. Even then it’s not really us that stop by to see, more like a spirit-projection, if that makes sense. And it’s never looked _anything_ like this.” 

“So you’re telling me you people don’t trek around in green swamps and spirit crap like this for fun?” 

Aha, _that_ prompted a small, tight smile. “Personally, I try not to. I’d check in with Solas later for a second opinion though—Blackwall tells me he’s been a bit more _physical_ with the spirits here than I have.” 

Bull snorted, making a mental note to ask both of them about that later on. 

“Nothing of _physical_ interest to you here, huh?” 

Another smile, slightly coquettish this time. “Thedas offers more than enough of that to keep me from searching past the veil.” 

“Thedas as a whole, or anything specific?” 

“Oh, I can think of one or two things that might be specific enough.” 

The incident from earlier still weighed on her, but as they reached the clearing she seemed to have managed to put the guise of Inquisitor Lavellan back on. And good thing too; at the far end, closest to what looked like a path up the mountain, the rest of the party appeared to have gathered. 

Cilla Hawke was the first to greet them. 

“Inquisitor!” She cried out, alerting the rest to their presence. 

Isen raised a hand tiredly in greeting, not having the heart or desire to shout. Five sets of wary eyes were on them at once, though Hawke’s mismatched brown and blue ones looked the most pleased out of anyone. 

“So the prodigals finally decide to grace us with their presence.” Dorian’s quip came from low on a stone, where he was dressing a small gash on his own shin. Beside him, Stroud was pacing back and forth in a line, and Varric was adjusting something on Bianca, though it was likely just to busy his hands. 

“Don’t tell me you all landed in the same hole together,” Bull said. 

“In a way,” Cilla replied. “Dorian and I were paired up, Stroud and Varric joined us soon after. We were already near here, just deciding what we should be doing next.” She blinked at both of them, no doubt looking weary and rough. “Was it the same for you?” 

“Hardly.” Isen took the opportunity to drop herself unceremoniously on the ground. She wasn’t tired, but he could tell at a glance that she was fatigued mentally if nothing else. “We were both separated. Pure luck that we found each other or any of you, really.” 

“She’s right,” he grunted. “This shit’s messed up. Doesn’t look like it has any intention of going easy on us.” He was weary enough to drop where he stood too, but had no intention of following suit. Instead, he crossed both arms across his chest and remained planted in place. 

“At least we’re alive and well enough to complain,” Cilla cut in before anyone else could. “Which means we’re alive and well enough to figure out how to leave this place. Lady Lavellan, you were here once before—or that’s what they say, at any rate—have you any idea…?”

“Not a clue,” she shook her head. “I don’t remember anything about it the last time, apart from what people tell me. Which is that Andraste pulled me out. Convenient as that would be, I highly doubt we can look forward to a second miraculous visit in one lifetime.” 

She tried not to look disappointed. “Miracles or not, we can’t stay here much longer. That demon was just on the other side of Erimond’s rift, and there’s no telling if there’s more of them here.” 

“This is _shit_ ,” Bull grumbled to no one in particular. “Ass-end of fucking demon-town…” 

“Dually noted,” Dorian added dryly, and if the noise Varric made meant anything, he was of the same mind.

Stroud had stopped pacing and was looking upwards to the top of the hill. There was something resembling a path near the far side of the clearing. “There was a rift in the main hall of the fortress, was there not? Inquisitor,” he turned to her, “would it be possible, were we to find that rift, to exit through it?” 

Isen pondered, rising from the ground and looking to the same place Stroud had been. Now that they were closer, it was easier to see that not only did the broken parts of the fortress look as though they’d been absorbed into the rock, but there was even something resembling a replica of the structure at its peak. 

“In theory,” she finally said after a pause. “In theory, yes, I should be able to use the mark to stabilize it long enough for our travel.” 

“Would it be in the same place as our world, do you think?” 

“Hard to say,” she admitted. “But it’s probably our best chance. And,” she added, casting a withering glare at their surroundings, “is probably a better idea than just sitting here. So, everyone—to the menacing green hole at the top of the mountain, shall we?”

 

* * *

 

The trek to the menacing green hole was deceptively longer than it appeared. For one, the ‘road’ was winding and broken in places, littered with pockets of demons that alerted everything else here where they were. The mages in the party quickly deduced that the booming, taunting voice that echoed all around them was undoubtedly a fear demon and a powerful one at that. After the conclusion was reached, each time it cracked over their heads, Isen would imperceptibly flinch. No doubt, she was thinking of the worries she’d voiced to him earlier, and worry was often enough to beget fear. 

For another, they had encountered something of a curiosity on their route—although when faced with the deceptively lively form of the late Divine Justinia, that was putting it mildly. 

The Divine watched them approach serenely, making no notice of the way everyone seemed to tighten the grips on their weapons simultaneously. 

“I greet you, Warden,” she said to Stroud. “And you, Champion.” Her expression could be called a smile, but only because Bull couldn’t quite think of another way to describe the hollowed, neutral face. 

“No,” Isen said simply. “The Divine couldn’t have survived Haven. So, what are you? A demon? Spirit?” 

He still didn’t see the point in making a distinction.

“Could she not have?” The Divine moved… oddly. Fluid, but in a way that suggested she was shifting far too quickly for mortal eyes to perceive properly. It was disconcerting to watch. “And how much of Haven do you truly remember? An interesting accusation from someone who found themselves at the hands of the same fate—yet here we both are. Truthfully, a full explanation requires more time than we have.” 

“We’re in no hurry to stay here either, but surely you can understand our—caution, shall we call it,” Hawke said hesitantly. She seemed to have noticed something incorrect with Justinia’s form as well, and it was making her visibly uncomfortable. 

“I do. However, just know I am here to help. Surely, Inquisitor, you know this. After all, you do not remember the events of the temple.” 

“Interesting reasoning.” Her eyes narrowed, and she moved as if she were almost stalking the Divine in a suspicious half-circle. “And it’s not very good, either. Did you take my memories, then? Perhaps you want to bargain them with me now.” 

“Nothing of the sort. They are the memories you lost to the demon who serves Corypheus, the nightmare you forget upon waking, serving fear and terror. It grows fat upon the darkness, and it is that same demon that is responsible for the False Calling.” 

“Of course,” she laughed grimly. “And, let me guess, we’ve just so happened to land in its home? The creature Erimond was trying to bring though?” 

“Indeed.” 

“And it’s here? Nearby?”

“Very close, yes.”

She laughed again, turning to face her companions. “Well, that’s just fucked, isn’t it?”

“Inquisitor,” she continued, ignoring the outburst. “It has taken a part of you, that which must be recovered before you move forward. Your memories, to be exact. They are scattered, but may be found once more.” 

“And if I decide I don’t want them?” 

“That will be to the detriment of everyone else here, including yourself.” 

“Of course,” she clucked her tongue. “Any objections?” 

She was met with no quarrels as Justinia vanished behind her. With a new sense of foreboding, they set on once more, though with a clearer goal in mind this time. 

They adopted a battle-ready formation. At the head was Isen, who took point both out of obligation and as an excuse to duck out of any conversation that may have cropped up. Being one of two close combat fighters, Bull trailed close behind. Stroud took up the rear with Dorian. In the centre was Varric and Hawke. While she was no knight enchanter, Bull couldn’t deny that the sheer force of her kinetic magic was impressive and made her an excellent choice for a mid-range defender. Tensions ran high between fights, which seemed a merciful distraction for pent-up feelings. Until, of course, things started _talking_ to them.

At the mention of her family and a woman named Merrill, a much-subdued Cilla had no more interest in squabbling over faults and blame with Stroud. Dorian had retorted back with quick, stinging jabs of his own, though if you paid attention you’d notice how the first few words would waver. As for him, if there were any doubt left in his mind as to whether or not the creature that ruled here truly was a fear demon, it put those to rest quite decisively. 

“ _And the Qunari_ ,” it practically purred, mocking them as they move from plateau to plateau gathering memories and rolling over its crawling forces. “ _The Qunari will make a lovely host for one of my minions—or maybe I will ride his body myself!_ ” 

A shiver rippled up his spine, and he cursed the fact that he was still no closer to being able to slice the thing’s throat. “I’d like to see you try,” he grit out, already looking for something else to hit. 

By far, though, Isen had the worst of it. It took whatever pain she carried with her, starting with what had already been exposed, and went for the meat of it. Pointedly, the barbs about her family, personal failings and insecurities were ignored by the group, as was the way she shook with rage and despair whenever it called her name. Anger kept her from allowing the reopened wounds of grief turn to tears. He wouldn’t call the mechanism a good one by any stretch, but it was useful, and he was familiar with the feeling. It was unsurprising that the one with the mark was also the largest target, being the only real chance of escape. If she fell, they were all equally doomed. 

Each of them moved with a single-minded, brutal focus through the fights no matter what was thrown at them. A slight margin of mercy could sometimes be afforded with human enemies, those conscripted against their will into being on the wrong side of history. That wasn’t the case here, and as they trudged on restraint was tossed to the wind. Adrenaline stopped him from feeling anything that touched him and helped to drown out the sounds of the demons. 

He knew what she meant now, about the voices. Nothing so far, aside from whatever Justinia was, had been able to take on a shape from their memories. But they could still pull from other sensations. Vasaad’s final battle cry as he surged forward, the sound of metal slicing through air and flesh and flourishing back in a spray of meat and blood. Cries of pain and horror from the last few Imekari hiding behind the bodies of Tamassrans that tried with everything they had to protect their charges, life draining out of the small helpless bodies, so much potential, so much waste. The smell of copper hitting his nose, not the smell the demons gave off, because they didn’t have blood, they weren’t _alive,_ but the smell of the temple after he began his own rampage. Blind with rage and grief, hacking away at those who stood before him with an unprecedented raw power that consumed his entire being and made him deaf to the shouts and pleas from the Tal-vashoth. But he heard it all now. The stronger ones had even managed to make the scenes flash before his sight instead of the battle before him, and he frantically stuffed down the panic that party trick brought on—if he couldn’t see, couldn’t know what was real, how could he be sure what—or who—he was cutting down? Madness, madness, losing control while being under the illusion of still having it. And he’d be powerless against it. They could have him cut down his allies, the organization he swore loyalty to, the woman that he—the one he thought of as his— _as his_ —

_Fuck, fuck, fuck it all!!_

It was a mess. No amount of justification or logic could solve that. Magic was—well, it was good and fine, in the hands of the right people. He trusted Vivienne’s barriers and often found himself in something akin to awe when she cleared a field before them. Dorian hadn’t hit him with a fireball yet, though he sometimes jokingly threatened to when he pushed far enough. Hawke was sweet and modest about it, but she could crush boulders and split the ground under foes with a crook of her finger. And there was plenty to trust about Isen. Besides what she could do on the field, he also liked it quite a bit when she’d absently drop a charged hand to his knee to alleviate the near constant throb of dull pain that kicked up in poor weather, or that fun temperature changing trick she pulled sometimes in the bedroom. In a sense, he’d warmed to the idea of the invisible element under certain circumstances. 

This was not one of them. 

Between that, Isen was picking up her scattered memories. Not, of course, without consequence. The first one had brought such a sudden, violent headache that she pitched forward as the images flooded her mind. She recalled, and recounted the knowledge to the rest, but not before she’d stopped being doubled over, sweating, hands braced hard on her knees and swaying unsteadily, looking as though she wanted to be sick. There was no hope of the rest being gentler either, her only relief coming from the knowledge that there was a finite amount of fragments for her to find. Unsurprisingly, the demon that had been presiding over everything got became more desperate as they neared the end, doing what it could to slow them with nightmares plucked from their own heads. 

“Well,” she announced weakly as she straightened herself out after yet another reveal. “At least one thing’s for sure—Justinia isn’t what she says she is.” 

“How can you tell?”

“Because,” she said ruefully, “I just saw her die in order to push me out of the Fade. It’s either her spirit, or something else entirely. Definitely not like us.” 

“I apologize for the duplicity,” the spirit said, materializing on the edge of the group. “And the disappointment.” At that, the Divine’s form was consumed by a brilliant gold light, apparently seeing no point in continuing with the persona. It hovered gently in place, keeping a recognizable humanoid form.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” Isen said coldly. “I think we’re all well past expecting anything from this place to be disappointed by.” 

“Are you not curious as to what I am, then?” 

“Not really, no.”

“The only thing I’m interested in,” he interjected, “is getting the hell out of here.” 

“As am I,” Hawke said with a pointed look towards Stroud. The break had given her a chance to stir up the argument that they’d had quietly going on since they arrived, according to Varric. “The sooner we achieve that, the sooner we can deal with the Warden’s mistakes.” 

Stroud bristled. “The Wardens—the Grey Wardens responsible for those crimes were under the control of Corypheus! We can discuss this when we return to Adamant—” 

“You mean the same fortress where the Inquisition faces demons, yes? The same demons summoned by the Wardens?” 

“Enough!” Isen snapped. “There’s no time to sit here and have a philosophical debate about where the blame should be placed—and does it even _matter_ at this point? In case either of you have _forgotten_ , we’re still stuck in the Fade.” 

As if on cue, the ground rumbled as lesser demons in the shape of spiders poured from every possible corner and crag. 

“The nightmare has found us,” Justinia warned, clearly too late as she dissipated once more. 

Bull glared at the vacant air for a moment, the cryptic and flaky nature of the spirit doing nothing to impress him no matter how much it had done to guide them in the right direction. Still, he couldn’t deny he was glad to have something to hit once more. Bracing himself for the clash of the first wave and whatever came with it, he could see in the distance that something much bigger was winding up for the attack. It resembled a human—if a human were twice as tall as he and had been corrupted and crossed with a giant spider. The voice that echoed from it was enough to confirm that it was the Nightmare itself that ran this place, or at least an avatar of it. 

Whichever it was, he decided at that moment that no matter what kind of mind games it brought out, he’d be tearing it apart with his blade before the day was done. It was the least, he figured, he was owed in reparations for, well, everything. 

The party charged. 

 

* * *

 

The fight was taxing, physically and mentally. They’d escaped by a hair, thankfully bringing no serious injuries out with them. Scrapes and bruises were to be expected, but those would heal soon enough. They’d been lucky in that way.

Stroud, however, not as much. 

In the end, his guess of the spider-like creature only being a part of the Nightmare had been correct. The actual form was much larger, much more grotesque, threatening to swallow them whole and destroy them at their core as the rift home was torn open and staring them down tauntingly. As much as he loved a good fight and particularly enjoyed ridding the world of more nasty Fade beasts, that was enough to give him pause. In the end, the only thing that had guaranteed their escape had been a combination of the Justinia-shaped golden spirit, and Stroud himself volunteering to stay behind as a decoy. Hawke had protested vehemently, offering herself in place, but Isen’s mind was already clearly made up. Whether it was because he was already willing, the mournful look Varric made no show of hiding, or the fact that the Inquisitor had grown slightly fond of the gentle Champion, he couldn’t say. The reason didn’t matter, ultimately. Stroud’s fate seemed certain as they tumbled through the rift and back onto solid ground. One man and his sword against a dreadnought-sized beast. Varric tried to be optimistic, for Hawke’s sake. Bull kept quiet about how bad those odds sounded to anyone with any sense.

He’d never been so glad to land that hard on the floor in his entire life—real, solid stone that didn’t move when he stared too hard at it or sprout legs behind his back. The rest of the party looked to be in a similar state of euphoria as the sounds of the battle being turned in their favour rang out over the courtyard. 

“She—the spirit I mean—she was right,” Hawke said breathlessly as she picked herself up and took in the scene. “The nightmare is gone, so is the spell on the mages—though I’m sure anyone here would say the Inquisitor was responsible for it with the Maker’s blessings.” 

“I’ve given up on the truth with these people,” Isen winced, rising a little more gingerly and favouring one leg noticeably. “What matters is that we won. Good for us, good for morale, bad for Corypheus--drinks and victory songs all around.” 

Anyone else would have mistaken it for an easy joke, a cavalier attitude in the face of yet another point in the Inquisition’s favour. According to the supporters, she made it look ridiculously easy. He couldn’t blame them for thinking so, not when that was the whole point of how she conducted herself in public. A living legend in the making, they said. 

To him, she just looked… tired. In need of a break, and perhaps a nice stiff drink. And unlike the ballads that praised her name, she looked remarkably, undeniably mortal. 

This did not stop one of her own men immediately accosting her with a Warden close on her heels, already clamouring for a decision to be made. Bull hung off to the side, detached but ever watchful. They really didn’t seem to care or notice that she’d just fallen out of the sky yet again and could probably use a five-second breather. She must’ve landed hard on the one knee, he deduced as he watched her move about slowly. The only thing anyone crowding her was interested in was the fate of the remaining Wardens (hired for the remainder of the Inquisition, to much grumbling) and Erimond himself, who was by some miracle still breathing (taken to Skyhold and held in a cell, to await further judgement). The onslaught of questions devolved into yet another speech, given by a false, strong voice that she summoned up from her chest to ring over those present, for them to carry to their comrades who weren’t here to see it first hand. 

Near the end, he caught her eye through the crowd of bodies. It was the first glimpse of her he’d had since they rejoined the group in the Fade that wasn’t of the Inquisitor. 

 

* * *

 

“ _Ugh!_ ”

Recruiting Cassandra’s help for this had seemed the best bet at hand, though as he braced himself for the impact of the stick, his lungs barely stuttered. 

“Again,” he grunted, readying himself once more. Cassandra swung, and still it was not enough. 

“A _gain—oof!_ Oh, come on! Again! I should’ve asked _Cullen_ —” 

The goad was apparently all she needed, twisting ‘round and using the momentum of her body to catch Bull on the upward stroke and knock him off his feet. 

Cassandra dropped the stick with a self-satisfied chuckle, apparently pleased with her own show of strength. 

“Good one,” he groaned from the grass, relishing in the resounding crack the impact left across his body. Skyhold was upsidedown from his current vantage point, and it was from there he watched a familiar pair of heeled boots cross the ground towards him. 

Isen took in Bull, pushing himself off the ground, and Cassandra looking smugly still at her handiwork. 

“Dare I even ask..?” 

“You should,” Cassandra advised. “And perhaps you should take over my post while you’re at it.” She let them be at that, presumably off to continue where she left off with Varric’s latest trashy romance read. The dwarf had been unusually curious about the nature of his relationship with Isen lately, though his questions were tactful and discreet. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t be the subject of Cassandra’s next favourite serial. 

“So,” she asked, taking up the stick as he rose. “This is what, exactly?” 

“Qunari training exercise to master fear,” he explained quickly, rolling the muscles of his shoulders a few times to loosen them up. “Haven’t needed it in awhile, but that Nightmare Demon was… _Mmpf_. Big.” 

“That’s one way of describing it.” She examined the stick in her hands. Sturdy wood, made to take punishment. It was one of the ones mages used for physical training without casting. She knew it well enough. “And I’m to just beat you with it? Or is there more to it that should be explained.” 

“I could, but that would be a very _long_ explanation with lots of Qunari terms that would need even more. Look, just—just hit me with the stick, alright? Need to get over this demon crap.” 

She looked at him, at the stick, back to him, and back at the stick once more. “If you say so,” she shrugged, and took the first swing. 

Isen was not a strength-reliant fighter by any means. If magic was removed from the equation, she was the type to rely on speed, placement and strategy before anything else. Still, between the sword work for Knight-Enchanting, the staff spinning of a battle mage, and the overall heightened fitness level she’d acquired since Haven, she was nowhere near as feeble as she looked. Not on the same level as Cassandra, but it was definitely going to leave a mark. 

“There we go! _Yeah!_ Damn— _ugh_ —damn demon! Who’s stuck in the Fade?” 

She was getting into it now, maybe even trying to match the same blow that swept him off his feet before. “That Nightmare wanted to tear you in half!” She cried as she brought it down on him once more. 

“Not a _fucking_ chance—” _Whack!_ “And who killed you?” _Whack!_ “Iron- _fucking_ - _Bull!_ ”

“Do that—do you need me to go again?” She was already cocked back and ready, just in case. 

“You’re good. _Hmpf_ , needed that. Thanks.” 

“And here I had no idea you liked it that rough,” she chuckled, leaning the staff against a training dummy. 

“Heh, well, from you, anyway.” 

“Funny you mention that,” she smiled. “But if you’re all done with… Whatever this was, then I have something for you that you might like.”

“Oh? What kind of something we talking here?” 

“A secret sort,” she grinned, pivoting on a heel and heading towards the Herald’s Rest. Her hands were folded neatly behind her back, and the fingers of the marked one wiggled invitingly. “The kind of secret that you’ll need to follow me for.” 

“Hmm, that’s a hard sell. Suspicious, if you ask me.” 

“Good thing I’m not asking then.” She tossed a beckoning look over her shoulder, until he finally bent to the request and took her hand in his. 

They went the long way up to his room, taking the stairs up the side of the ramparts instead of going through the tavern. She locked her slim fingers with his immediately, hand nearly disappearing as he folded it into his palm. There was a slight chill to her extremities, always, but it wasn’t as bad indoors or in the warm sun. Besides, he was used to her hands now. 

“Stay here.” She led him to the bed, motioning for him to sit. “Get comfortable, I’ll be back in half a second—maybe even less?” 

“You sure this isn’t some kind of elaborate trap?” 

“Not at all,” she laughed, half out the door. “Just got ahead of myself. Be right back.” 

_Get comfortable, huh?_ Well, that phrase usually only led to one thing—and it’d been a good few days since they had any time with each other alone, so…

Bull stripped, leaving his pants folded neatly over the chair in the corner and his boots tucked underneath. And then he waited, lounging on the bed with his feet by the headboard. It’d be the best way to see the look on her face once she came back. 

He occupied himself by trying to piece together what she had to run for. A gift of some sort, definitely. He wasn’t the type to ask for gifts, or even hint at something he might want, so it was reasonable to assume that whatever it was would probably benefit both of them somehow. Other than that, he had no idea. 

She was right about being quick, though. Isen returned to the room carrying a decently sized wooden box. It looked expensive and well made, trimmed with a pinkish-gold and inset with precious metals and gemstones of reddish hues. 

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathed, drinking it what had been laid out for her and hurriedly shutting the door behind her when the surprise wore off. 

“You did say get comfortable,” he shrugged, “so I’m comfortable.”

“I can see that.” She was staring, grinning, letting her eyes roam across the expanse of his body. She didn’t hide one shred of her delight, but she did genuinely look as though she wasn’t expecting this. 

She perched herself on the bed near his thighs, barely making a dent in the mattress. She ran an appreciative hand down his torso, leaving goosebumps in her wake. 

“So, not quite what you had in mind?” 

“Not quite, but I’m definitely not complaining.” She moved her attention back to the box sitting in her lap, drawing his curiosity with her. “And I _definitely_ plan to do something with it, now that I have you. But I actually did want to give you something before we got to all of that. If—if that’s okay, I mean.” She ran her hands over the smooth top of the wood, a flush creeping up her cheeks. 

He adjusted his legs and sat up only the slightest bit straighter, far too comfortable already where he was. “Why wouldn’t it be?” 

A shrug. “Just checking, is all.” 

“So go ahead. Nothing here but this room, no Inquisition, just you and me. What’d you need to get off your chest first?” 

“Well, I—” 

She was cut off by the sound of the door opening, perhaps a little unnecessarily loudly. 

“Is the Inquisitor in here? I saw her heading—oh, sweet Maker.” 

Cullen shielded his eyes with the papers he was holding. Isen gaped, blinking furiously at the intruder. Bull decided to break the tension. 

“Cullen, how’s it going?” 

He sputtered, starting to apologize, but was unable to finish before Josephine took it upon herself to inquire after the Inquisitor’s whereabouts as well.

“Has anyone seen th—oh!” 

Isen’s eyes darted between her two advisors, incredulous and clearly annoyed. “Is there something I can help either of you with right now?” She asked icily. 

Cullen, at least, was taking great pains to avert his eyes while stammering. 

“I cannot move my legs,” Josephine said simply. She was apparently unable to blink, too. 

“What’s going on h— _ugh!!_ ” 

Cassandra too, apparently felt the need to join the viewing party, which also brought an end to Bull’s good humour. Isen had folded her arms across her chest, shaking her head. 

“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered, rolling his eye. “Anyone else out there wanna stand in my doorway?” 

“So,” Cassandra started, unsure what, exactly she should be looking at. “I take it—”

“Actually,” he interrupted, “ _she’s_ the one who’s been taking it.” 

That, at least got him a small laugh, from both Isen and the commander. 

“Yes. Well,” she said stiffly. “I—we—apologize for interrupting this… _momentary_ distraction.” 

She looked pointedly at Isen, who was now glaring where she stood at the trio. He held his breath. The question he’d been ignoring for how many months now? Had just been dragged out into the open, in front of two advisors and _Cassandra Pentaghast_ , of all people. Bull was going to get his answer, whether he was ready for it or not. 

“Momen—” She sucked in a breath, visibly calming herself. “No, Cassandra, this is not just a ‘momentary distraction,’ and you’ve so kindly described it. Bull and I are very much together, thank you, and have no intention of stopping. Does the audience take issue with this? Or do they plan to pull up a seat and watch what happens next?” 

“No, no! Not at all!” Josephine quickly answered, still frozen in place. 

“A bit… unexpected,” said Cassandra. “But not entirely a surprise. Or a problem.” 

“We’ll leave you be,” Cullen finally said, effectively ending the conversation as he ushered the other two out the door and pulled it shut tight behind him. 

Isen sat back down, still shaking her head, and gave him a tired smile. “I planned to do this more eloquently,” she admitted with a small laugh. 

“Do what?” He finally sat himself up all the way, closer to her now. He still wasn't quite sure he’d heard her dismissal of Cassandra’s question right, and wasn’t quite sure he’d begun to breathe again either. “Everything okay?” 

“No,” she said slyly, “I don’t remember saying _katoh_ , but we’ve stopped anyway.” 

He laughed, feeling the overwhelming urge to kiss her. 

“But since they did all the hard work for me,” she rolled her eyes. “No point in putting it off. Here. Open it.” 

She thrust the box into his hand. The wood was clearly solid, and so was whatever it held inside. She watched, anticipating, drumming her fingers nervously on the mattress.

Oh.

_Oh._

“This is…” 

“A dragon’s tooth,” she quickly supplied, eyes darting about as the blush returned, full-force. “Split in two. You know, like—well, you know,” she laughed, bashful. “I remembered what you told me. It’s from the Frostback, see? From Redcliffe. The first one we got. Not really split in two, more like two and a half, I didn’t realize how big it was until they’d finished with the crafting at the requisition's office, my part’s more like a small bit from the second half so I can actually wear it, but see look! I remembered—tried to remember—things you’d mentioned you liked, dawnstone for certain, and…” she trailed off, breathless, still fidgeting with the sheets. “Do you… do you like it? Will you take it?” 

Bull hadn’t taken his gaze from it once. Gingerly, he ran his fingers over the bone, the carvings, delicate designs hammered into the metal—just sketching this alone must’ve taken weeks, and that didn’t even account for the details on the box itself. 

“ _Kadan_ ,” he said at once, so soft and gentle that she had to strain to hear. “It’s…” 

“Yes?” 

“It’s not often people surprise me.” He turned to face her fully now, carefully placing the tooth on the bed beside them. 

He drew her in, both hands on her face, and they met somewhere in the middle. Kissing Isen was familiar, natural and commonplace, something he’d done nearly every day at least once since they arrived at Skyhold. But this one tasted different. Sweeter. He wanted to say everything that was racing around his mind and hammering in his heart. He wanted to say nothing and let the moment speak for itself. She was smiling into it. They both were.

“ _Kadan_ ,” he said softly once more as they parted. 

“I’ve heard that word before. You’ve never told me.” 

“So you did remember.” He pulled her in again, closer this time, seeing if the taste of the kisses had already reverted to what they were before. They hadn’t. “You never asked.” 

“It wasn’t important that I knew yet,” she whispered. She kissed unhurriedly up his neck, jaw, pausing near his ear. “ _Vhenan._ ” 

“What’s that?” 

“You first.” 

His face was going to be sore from all the ridiculous smiling he was doing, he was sure of it. “ _Kadan_ ,” he said as he laid her on the bed. 

“My heart.” 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think so far!! 
> 
> (please this chapter almost physically killed me i did 90% of it in a 15 hour long fit of hubris fgyuhij)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god okay so. i was 47 pages deep in the draft for this thing when i realized that about 90% of it just wasnt working. to those who have been patient: i love u tysm as always. to those coming onto the ride now, congrats, you skipped the waiting period! 
> 
> whew. okay. anyway this chapter ended up being just over 17k. im posting this update from beyond the grave.

“You know, I don’t think I care for that woman much at all.”

By ‘that woman,’ Isen was referring to Morrigan, of course. A more recent acquisition to Skyhold, she’d been skulking around for the last few months after the Halamshiral. Outside of warble meetings, she appeared to have no interest in spending extending periods of time with the Inner Circle. Which was just as well, Bull supposed. The way mages sized each other up never ceased to amuse him, and watching Morrigan interact with Isen was definitely up there in entertainment value. His _Kadan_ made absolutely no secret of her general distaste for the human woman, finding her condescending and rude on the best of days. He was relatively certain that if the title of Inquisitor hadn’t been holding her back, there would have already been some very _interesting_ exchanges of words between them. Of course as it stood, she was resigned to tolerating Morrigan’s presence until the Inquisition was ready for its next move.

One day he’d have to ask what exactly it was with mages and being predisposed to quietly hating each other that much, save for perhaps one or two individuals. Vivienne was close with Isen, and so was Dorian, but take her out of the equation and the relationship seemed to feed off of curt insults, backhanded compliments, and nothing more. Solas possessed an uncanny ability to raise the tension in the room with no more than three words to any given one of them, and while Bull had assumed that he might find a kindred spirit in Morrigan who could produce the same effect just through making eye contact, they probably could stand each other the _least_ out of all the possible group variations. He had also learned that the quickest way to stir the pot was to toss seemingly impossible magical theory into a conversation, and wait the requisite three seconds before the first round of shouting started. While she wasn’t particularly inclined towards academics, Isen _was_ inclined towards expanding her own range of skills and had recently begun working on a method of travel that worked like Eluvians, only through a hole in the fabric of reality she tore herself. Purely theoretical, she assured him, but if there was a way she could get herself to the other end of the continent in the blink of an eye, well, wouldn't that have practical applications that made the theory worth pursuing? His innocent mistake of asking how the study process was going within earshot of Dorian had started an extremely passionate “discussion” that went on for the better part of three hours, and _they_ were the pair that considered the other person to be amongst their closest friends.

 _Must be a pride thing_ , he decided. Not that there was no pride or showing-off between warriors; far from it. But there was also a certain honesty about it there. If someone else with a sword was trying to show you up, challenge, or intimidate you, it was obvious. Throw a fireball or two, and all of the sudden they’d rather pretend they weren’t doing anything of the sort at all. It would have been maddening to watch, if it wasn’t also so goddamn _funny_ at the same time. Like the way Morrigan refused to wear anything resembling warm clothing, even when Isen would passive-aggressively cool the air around her every time she found her irritating, and Morrigan would passive-aggressively warm the air right back up with an extra hint of smugness, which of course would leave Isen quietly fuming, so then she would focus on slowly turning Morrigan’s tea into a block of ice, and so on until the meeting was finished. Neither of them said a damn word about the petty behaviour for the duration of the conversation, which would be strictly about Inquisition business. Isen’s face might have been completely neutral, but the hard line of her shoulders and the tightness of her jaw said that she craved any sort of reason to start something.

Once, he might have assumed she was nothing like Vivienne, or Dorian, or even Solas in that regard. Not in a way that made her different than them, but given her tendency to be aloof that she showed at the beginning, he honestly just didn’t picture her caring about this sort of thing, not even noticing it enough to get under her skin. One more thing that had been a surprise later on—he couldn’t picture it, because it was months before he observed her spending extended time with any other mages. Even then, it was just Dorian for the longest time, and most of the time they got on like a house on fire, instead of ceaselessly tossing subtle jabs at the other.

But while she was even known to have genuinely friendly days with Solas from time to time, Morrigan was an entirely different story, and there was nothing subtle about it.

“Never would have picked that one up,” he said, shuffling through some expense reports for the Chargers at the desk. He laughed a bit when he caught her slight glare as she walked past him in her robe, clearly annoyed but more concerned with climbing into the hot bath that had just been drawn for her.

“Hm.” She slipped the short silk robe off her shoulders, balling it up and tossing it lightly at him, which he caught smoothly to her disappointment. “I don’t recall giving my heart to a Qunari comedian at any point.”

“Ahh, come on,” he grinned, not bothering to hide the way he eyed her up and down as she lowered herself into the steaming water. “ _You_ think I’m funny.”

“I’m also a known liar, and a politician,” she replied, slightly cold and absent as she pinned her hair up, back facing Bull and seemingly more interested in which soap she wanted to use than their conversation. He scowled gently. _That_ was why he wasn’t exactly on board with Morrigan being here either. Isen’s perpetual bad mood was a recent acquisition, which had started not long after they returned from Halamshiral quietly at first, but the closer they inched to confronting Corypheus again, the more pronounced it became. Not that he could blame her, of course, because there was nothing relaxed or easy about the situation, but damn, was he ever starting to miss her usual self. She’d snap back once this was done, he knew that much from experience, but it was never this drawn-out before. The first few days leading up to a big mission at most, maybe, and he could nearly always coax her into forgetting the tension in her mind and body for a bit. But the typical way he took her mind off of things was also losing its effectiveness—lately, if she wanted it, she wanted it rough, risky, and borderline cruel. Which he could do, of course, but she also didn’t need to act like she did during the day around him to get it. She still cared, of that there was never any doubt, but there was a new sharpness to her words that he wasn’t entirely sure he liked.

“In Orlais, maybe,” he chuckled without looking up. “Don’t know about this side of the border.”

He could feel her glaring at him hard, leaning against the side of the wooden tub with her arms resting on the edge. “The entire hold is _on_ the border,” she reminded him.

“Right. And this room is on the Ferelden side.” Feigning ignorance, he covered his smirk by clearing his throat as she huffed and fumed quietly across the room, saying nothing. Oh, she was in a _mood_ today alright, undoubtedly thanks to a strategy meeting that had lasted nearly all day. She’d even bypassed a drinking invitation at the tavern earlier, practically making a beeline for her quarters. She was already halfway to a boiling point, had been all day, and if Bull wasn’t careful, she’d devote any remaining energy she had to picking a fight, bait which he ultimately wouldn’t take, which would only make her even more angry instead of deescalating anything.

Sometimes he truly couldn’t comprehend how most people didn’t consider her to be anything close to stubborn. Oh, she had a good heart, loved fiercely, and devoted herself to her job, and those were the qualities people picked up on. But she was also capable of a great depth of cruelty and anger, selfishness that she kept compartmentalized until she needed it. He accepted all of it, of course, but he also found himself wishing that she was less inclined towards self-destruction when those qualities surfaced. That was the other thing too—before she lashed out at anyone or anything, she would be the first victim to her own emotions. In this case, it was in the form of trying to handle everything on her own, and subconsciously trying to drive people away so they wouldn’t have to worry about it, and she’d have no choice.

He shook his head and signed off on the last of the reports. She was going to be the reason his beard started to grey one of these days, he was certain.

Ensuring everything was dated and stamped properly, the papers were placed in a neat stack as he left them on the desk and made his way to the tub. Her eyes were fixed hard on him the entire time, though she said nothing about his approach.

The basin wasn’t quite shoved into the corner of the room. It left enough space behind it for a privacy screen to be folded and stored (not that it was ever really used), a rack for hanging towels, and in this case, a clear space for Bull to kneel down, large hands resting on her narrow shoulders.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his head down to rest near hers. “Only for another week. One more week, then we march, kick Corypheus’s ass again, and _then_ you can send her through the door with the most tasteless celebration you can throw.”

That at least managed to pull a reluctant smile out of her, even if she’d kept her eyes fixed on the opposite wall as soon as he slipped behind her. Maybe even the first few hints of a snicker. It certainly left her more receptive to the way he pressed a few soft kisses up the side of her neck. Might even have done more too, if the edge of the tub wasn’t jabbing uncomfortably up into his body.

“Remind me to make it a thank you party to everyone for putting up with me for the last little while.”

“Just a little while?”

He felt the huff before he heard it, and didn’t even have to look to know she was rolling her eyes. “Alright, alright. Rounding off nearly two and a half months of days where I felt like I could easily justify a homicide.”

“And had no problem letting everyone know it,” he reminded her with a nip to a shoulder.

“That too,” she scoffed. “But really though. Thank you for putting up with me.” she said quietly as she turned to press a kiss to his cheek.

“You’re only insufferable for about half the day, anyway.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I can commit the entire day to being a prick instead if you want. I do have the ability in me, you know.”

“Not necessary,” he laughed, deciding it was time to get up—more like his knee decided, anyway. The perils of falling for someone more than two feet below his line of sight, he supposed as it creaked in protest. “Believe me, _Kadan,_ I’m not the one doubting your capacity for that crap.”

“I’m just saying,” she said, allowing her eyes to slip shut with a small smile, no doubt savouring the way the damn-near burning heat of the water permeated her tense muscles. And then, before he managed to move more than a few steps, “Bull?”

“Mm?”

“There’s room for _several_ people in this… bucket. Also just saying.”

Bull had always enjoyed a nice bath, for as long as he could remember. The heat of the water, the scent of oils and soaps, all of it. He’d take it over the utilitarian scrub-downs in rivers they were subjected to on the road any day of the week. Ideally, it would also be in a vessel long enough to fully stretch his legs out in. This wasn’t exactly that, but it certainly wasn’t cramped either, kneecaps above the water be damned. He didn’t think twice about accepting the invitation, happily stripping down and lowering himself into the water across from her, adopting a similarly relaxed position with his elbows resting on the outside edge of the tub. By all accounts, the water probably should have already started cooling down, but that was perhaps one more benefit of a mage companion; not once did the temperature ever go below ‘comfortably steaming,’ and it would stay like that until they were both ready to get out.

“Hey,” he nudged her with a foot. Isen cracked open one eye and raised a questioning brow in response. “Are you gonna let me be nice to you tonight, or can I expect more of a fight from you when I take you to bed?” By that of course, he was really asking if she’d calmed down _right now_ in general, not so much about the possibility of sex later on—sharing a bath was strangely enough, no real indication of this.

She raised her head from where she’d been leaning it back over the edge, faintly amused as she propped her cheek on her hand. “I’m not going to growl at you, if that’s what you mean. Unless, of course, you’re just a conjured illusion crafted with the sole intent of luring me into a false sense of security to distract me while someone else runs the Inquisition behind my back, I think you’re safe.”

“Promise I’m as real as they come,” he laughed softly. “Float over here for a second. I missed you today.”

“You saw me just this morning,” she said, but did as asked anyway without any real arguments. She was irritable, yes, but more than anything, underneath it all, Isen was _drained_. He’d given her no reason for a fight, and was finally cautiously being rewarded with a peculiar sort of resigned, needy docility.

“Sure, but there was also that ten-hour gap where you were locked in the war room and didn’t come out until it was getting dark.” He pulled her onto his lap, taking advantage of the empty space across from him to comfortably straighten his legs as he did so. “And then you decided to hide out up here until I came to find you.”

“Can you really blame me?” She asked dryly as he snaked an arm around her waist. “If anyone caught me and tried to ask for a favour after I escaped, I honestly might have just opened up a rift right then and there and happily jumped into it to avoid the conversation.”

“Sounds like a reasonable reaction to me,” he said, nodding seriously.

He felt her laugh against him. “That’s what _I_ thought. I’m completely committed to using the anchor responsibly.”

A comfortable pause settled over the room for a few moments. Bull busied himself by finding the edges of scars on her body, recalling the stories he’d been told about each one. His were nearly all acquired in various fights across the years, but she had some variety to her marks. Two wide, jagged lines that came over her left shoulder and stopped at the collarbone—from an exotic bird being sold at a market who had apparently decided it hated her specifically. Left thigh, an old burn about half the size of his palm—from the time when her magic was still new to her and she was trying to discover which types she was more naturally inclined towards, and fire had evidently not been one of them. Right forearm, a misshapen scratching of thin lines, apparently all that was leftover after getting a quack alchemist to remove a tattoo she didn’t remember getting after a bender near Denerim. The ink was gone, and so was the shape of whatever it was trying to be, but the skin remembered. There were others too, some from battle, of course. Others that weren’t but she refused to speak much on, their stories apparently not as amusing to recount. He had memorized the map of them all.

“You’ve been thinking pretty loudly over there all night,” he said idly as they dried off afterwards. He liked to claim the fuzzy towels for himself, which she had no problem with. She was more than happy to recline in front of the roaring fireplace until the heat had evaporated the water that still clung to her, as she did now.

“It’s been a thinking-loudly sort of day,” she shrugged from the couch, looking at the flames but not really focusing on them. Then, a pensive sigh. “We’ve prepared just about everything we can, found out whatever we could about the temple and the Eluvian in the Arbor Wilds, planned around that, we already have the first round of advance scouts and smaller troops making their way over there, and yet…”

“It’s still not sitting right with you?” He guessed over his shoulder, hanging the now-damp towel over the rack to dry for the night.

“Not at all,” she agreed. “It’s strange—there’s never been any difference in the stakes this whole time. Haven, Halamshiral, all of it. I didn’t feel this way leading up to any of that, though. I don’t even know how to define _this way_.”

“We’re closer to finishing things this time,” he reminded her as he sat on the bed. “We’ve got Corypheus backed into a corner, and if what we know about this Crossroads crap is true, he’s going to be getting desperate. Which isn’t bad for us, exactly—it’ll lead to some sloppy decisions on the field we can use against him. He knows this is probably one of the last chances he’ll get to take down the Veil. I doubt he’d be sitting there wanting to make our jobs easier near the end.”

“The end,” she echoed, mostly to herself. “Huh. Strange to think about this all being over soon, isn’t it? It almost feels like I’ve always been living like this. I know that nearly four years isn’t _that_ long, but still.”

“It’s long enough to get comfortable with something,” he said as he settled himself against the mountain of pillows they kept, mostly for his benefit.

“Mm.” She was lost in thought again, and appeared to barely have heard.

Bull was no stranger to the anxieties that came with facing a complete life change. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that he would’ve still been considered _Hissard_ in some circles, his true name a series of identifying numbers, answered to the Ben-Hassrath under the Qun. The time between receiving that fateful letter and having his future as a Tal-Vashoth decided were foggy and indistinct, full of uncertain, unpleasant feelings that left him untethered to anything, acting out the motions of his routine more than actually being present in anything. The prospect of losing the Inquisition couldn’t come close by his standards, but it would have still held the same sense of discomfort on a lesser scale. The Inquisition was far from the only thing she had known, but it was _stable_ —even if that stability came from an unfortunate ongoing conflict. It had to be dealt with, but once it was removed, the future was a gaping void of uncertainty. Perhaps now wasn’t the time to address it, though. Bull changed the subject.

“Why don’t you come over here and join me, _Kadan?_ ” He offered. “Bet I could get you thinking about something else for a bit, if you wanted.”

She shook herself out of her daze, unhurriedly pushing herself off the couch with a wary chuckle. “That’s quite the big claim, you do realize.”

“Yeah,” he smiled as she climbed atop him and he accepted her into his arms, pleased to feel her relax even more with every kiss he pressed to her face and neck. “I’m confident in my abilities, though. Any requests for the evening?”

She hummed thoughtfully for a moment, evidently just pleased to enjoy the way his hands gently wandered around her body and the feeling of his lips on her jaw. “Your choice, Love,” she finally decided. “I trust you.”

Bull beamed quietly, heart fluttering in his chest. Pet names of any variety were a newly acquired weakness of his, no matter what language she spoke them in, and he couldn’t say he minded how it made him feel one bit. _Vhenan_ was special, of course, being the first one received and whatnot, but he also found himself very partial to _Sweetheart_. _Love_ was a funny one. Not that it wasn’t nice to hear, because it most certainly was. It was just that it was the only time the word ever came up between the two of them.

Bull hadn’t ever explicitly said the words _I Love You_. He showed it often, of course. It was in every touch, every glance, every time _Kadan_ left his mouth. And he felt it too, sitting acutely in his chest and pulling so tight it bordered on bursting every time she absently pulled their fingers together, held him closer in her sleep, or proudly informed someone that yes actually, they were indeed an item. In the echoes of his mind where no one else could hear, Bull freely and loudly admitted that he loved, loved, _loved_ Isen. His _Kadan_ was the catalyst that changed his life for the better and gave him something to cling onto while he found himself and his footing afterwards. And perhaps that was the issue—it all felt too _big_ to be contained in just three words. Yet somehow at the same time, those words felt impossibly enormous and permanent on their own. It was a circular argument he had with himself often, and he was fully aware that it made little sense, beyond perhaps reminding him a little _too_ strongly of the way he’d felt just before he’d been given the dragon’s tooth. Much like the cocktail of relief and disappointment he felt after she didn’t question him on the meaning of _Kadan_ after they’d slayed their first dragon, he was grateful his inability to say anything hadn’t affected how she acted with him while being torn that she also hadn’t been the one to say anything first.

But even if he made it past the mental hurdle, now wouldn’t have been the time to say it anyway—at least not for the first time. Taking that step during the last few days before a major battle sounded too much like saying goodbye to his ears. Instead, Bull pulled her in even closer, calmed by her familiar scent of violets and juniper as he kissed a slow trail back to her mouth. She was willing to take whatever he gave her, even if it was going to continue the last few weeks' trends of rough sex with restraints, complete with all the extra sadistic bells and whistles he could shake a stick at. But he didn’t want that. Bull wanted to let them both feel everything, to get lost in sensation and buried under the weight of things they never said but meant with their entire being.

 _I love you,_ he wanted to say plainly. _I love you so damn much it hurts. I can’t think of a future without you in it anymore. Stay. Stay with me. You don’t need it but fuck, I’d protect you from anything if I could. Take on the whole world if that’s what would make you happy. Kadan, you’re incredible. Kadan, everything about you is perfect and exquisite even the parts you’ve been taught to hate. I’ve been everywhere on this continent, and I’ve never met anyone who even comes close to comparing. So many other people would’ve been better for you, less whispering and horseshit thrown your way. Probably would’ve looked prettier on your arm too, hah. But you’re here anyway. You say I make you happy. I don’t know crap about how love works in the South, how people do this the ‘right’ way. But I’ll figure it out. You make me happy, too. Who knows if what we’re doing is ‘proper’? It works for us. I want us to keep working. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you._

He doesn’t, though. He wraps it all up, nice and compact, tops it off with a bow and another kiss. A speech for another day. Instead, he rolled them over gently, laying her down with an uncharacteristic reverence. There’d be time for more words when they were done.

“My choice, huh?” He smiled again as he laid himself atop her and kissed his way down her body. “Okay, _Kadan_. Don’t worry about anything for awhile—I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Twice that night they made love. Bull drew it out for both, not wanting to miss a thing.He completely covered her petite frame with his bulk whenever things got like this. For all the simplicity of it, him being on top while she writhed on her back below him wasn’t often the first choice for the night. It almost seemed too easy in their bed, where there were o-rings on the headboard and the ‘weapons chest’ readily available beside them a few feet away, and sometimes it was just easier to grab her hips while she was on her hands and knees and slip inside from behind. In the mix of ropes and blindfolds and toys, the simplest was often forgotten.

But that didn't mean he enjoyed this any less. Far from it, actually. The Bull’s entire world shifted to what was in front of his face. Isen held onto him fiercely, digging her nails into his shoulders as if she would die if they separated. Each roll of his hips has her gasping and arching clear off the bed, chasing his mouth with her own as if she couldn’t quite decide what she wanted more—to kiss him or to continue shouting his name and praising whatever gods may have been listening.

She didn’t have to decide. Bull moved his hands from where he had them braced on either side of her head and wrapped them around her, catching and cradling her against his chest. She cried out sharply and threw her arms around his neck as his hips snapped up, faster and harder than before.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” she choked, “ _please._ ” He kissed her then, hard and through. She was still moaning, except now the sounds were muffled, and he felt more than heard them. She scratched her nails down his scalp, he kissed her mouth. She dug her heels into his back, he buried his face into the side of her neck and bit down hard. She begged for him, begged for all of him, and he found himself swearing to never let go.

And that was how they came; sweaty, tangled, Bull sucking tender bruises into the soft skin where her shoulder met her neck.

He settled his weight on her gently afterwards, resting his face on her chest. He liked being there; he liked listening to her heartbeat as it slowed down from an orgasm-driven, frantic pace, to a long, blissed-out steady pattern. Isen’s scent was always strongest on her chest too; yes, there was the smell of the perfume she wore layered on top of everything, and now the soaps from the bath earlier too, but there was also skin, and sweat, and everything indescribable that made her,  _her_. And, of course, right now there was _sex_ thrown into that mix—even better. The Iron Bull was not a sentimental man—at least, he didn’t think himself to be—but oh, he’d grown to love this.

“You’re incredible,” she said with a hoarse laugh from somewhere above him. She’d lost her vice-grip on him from earlier but still kept him in a loose hug. “I—that was really good. Really, really good.”

“Mhm,” he said. “Perfect end to a crap day.”

She laughed tiredly, and he couldn’t help but chuckle as he felt her move. “Very true. Who would’ve guessed this was the real way for me to solve all my problems with the march on the Arbor Wilds? Never mind stopping the demons or stabilizing the Breach. Just this. Just you.”

He didn’t have to look up to feel the soft look she was giving him. Instead, he kissed back up her chest and found her lips again. No teeth this time, no frenzied need for release. Bull moved slow, savouring every sigh, feeling the dreamlike way her hands drifted around his back. Tomorrow they would wake early once more, bogged down by responsibilities and the final travel plans for their own party, likely taking an early bedtime so they could leave Skyhold at dawn. It was all so immediate, and yet felt almost comically far away as he lay there. If she told him they were actually just sitting in their own pocket universe right now, completely separate from all outside influences, he wouldn’t even have flinched. Perhaps love really would be the thing that ended this war after all.

 

* * *

 

Less than five hours until the remainder of the Inquisition was to depart for the Wilds, and Bull wasn’t sleeping even remotely well.

A bad night before an important battle wasn’t unusual, and he’d been trained to work through it. But the particular genre of his dreams that night were insidious, far too hungry to be quelled by his Ben-Hassrath training.

_It was Seheron, that much he knew. The sticky, heavy heat hanging in the jungle air was enough of a confirmation, as was the general weight of constant unease and vigilance. Home, of a sort. Qunlat punctuated the sounds that reached his ears over the din of static. Orders, yes, of course, what else would he be standing here for? It was one of the main operations points of the Ben-Hassrath, not where all the orders came from certainly, because that would be unwise and unsafe. Hissrad nods as he is spoken to. The voice doing the speaking can’t seem to decide where its coming from or which of its voices to choose. It echoes around the room instead, starting off as one person and ending as another entirely. Hissrad nods again. He understands; a Saarebas, a disobedient one too. Born in the borders but not one of theirs, It seemed to long for more freedom than was allowed. Sometimes, the ones that listened could be trusted with their eyes and tongues, perhaps even the ability to walk without a control rod if they were lucky. This one was not like that. He would have to do something about it, of course. An unbroken Saarebas on Seheron? Risky enough when they were leashed. Suicide like this._

_The face in front of him blurs in time with its voice. He can taste the words but if he strains to listen, they mean nothing. It’s a shell of his native tongue, licking whispers up his spine and skull. Comprehension must have been part of some long-forgotten part of his training. Or maybe it was simply waiting in his subconscious for the right time._

_Hissrad’s left eye twitches._

_The Ben-Hassrath with the whispers has vanished in front of him. The room is gone too, and he doesn’t remember drifting down to the prison cells when his feet haven’t hit the ground once. Each step feels like he’s pulling his legs through sand. He can’t feel his foot connect with the floor, but he hears it and so do the guards flanking the cell. They let him pass without verification. Who else could wear Hissrad’s skin as he does? There are many Hissrads and only one Hissard. He is many. He is one. He is nothing at all._

_More static. He’s in the cell. Empty, hollow—no, not quite. Something chained around the waist, anchored to the floor. It is human—no, elf—stripped and kneeling, facing the wall. Red hair starts at the scalp and cascades down its back, swirling, melting, pooling on the floor like liquid wax. Or perhaps it is no fault of the creature’s. The walls are leaking too. He should put in a report for the labourers to take care of that._

_Saarebas, he says, his voice mingling with the layered whispering he’d heard earlier. It does not heed. Hissrad repeats himself, over and over, each call adding to the never-ending echo of the room. The noise of it all is incomprehensible, coming from every corner, every crack, each one trying to overpower the other and be the voice that the Saarebas will finally heed._

_Saarebas, he feels the word form in his mouth but can’t tell if the sound came out over the cacophony of himself in his eardrums. He says it as he grips the hair at the scalp, twisting the pathetic wretch to finally face him. He shouldn’t be alone in this, he realizes suddenly—there should be other, more docile Saarebas here to subdue It if things got out of hand. But Hissrad is alone, one hand full of fog and liquid and red, the other clutching a ceremonial dagger drawn of its own will._

_He will follow his directive. This is Seheron._

_The Saarebas stares through him, a glowing golden ochre picking him apart from the inside out. It cannot—will not—be allowed to exist on Seheron. It has been ordered. It will find freedom in its chains, or death, and Hissrad’s hand will bring whatever It needs._

_He is good like that, under the Qun. A Ben-Hassrath should know what a situation needs, always._

_But it is difficult to tear out a tongue when he cannot seem to find a mouth. It’s there, right there! The knife raises; it lowers. Hissrad drops it into the fog and tears into—what he assumes—is where the jaw would be with his untrimmed claws instead._

_Miss._

_Throat._

_Its head lolls back, he’s unable to let it completely go for some reason; the eyes continue to stare, a pale yellow gaze that keeps him still. Oh, there’s the mouth he was searching for—black bile bubbles up from the inside out, spilling over Its lips, coating Hissrad’s chest in an inky sheet. The hole along the pale column of a windpipe flaps and cackles uselessly at his folly._

_The eyes. He scrambles for the eyes. A docile Saarebas does not need to see, the Qun doesn’t demand it, and there is cord to ensure that. He blinks. The eyelids have been stitched shut over empty sockets this entire time. The ink bonds him to the floor, still gushing out from Its maw like a fountain. The puncture wound is gone._

_Hissrad blinks again. He failed; he failed at this simple task for an agent of his rank. His name leaves him. Ashkaari sits on the floor clutching the body of the unknown elf as his own body meshes and forms into the whispers in the air._

_Ashkaari wakes as Iron Bull. It was funny what the air in the South could do to his dreams;the South is funny in lots of ways. But he likes his bed. He likes his Inquisitor. Neither of these things are where he is, though. It’s a Chantry, probably. Not very decorated if it is. Someone’s painted the stained glass dark. He should put in a report for the labourers to take care of that._

_Iron Bull has never prayed to Andraste before, but that’s what the only other soul here is doing. Standing before the statue, formless in a Chanter’s robe. His question leaves his lungs before he opens his mouth. The robe does a pivot, and he is greeted with the same swirling red from the cell. But there are no Chantries on Seheron. And there are certainly no Tranquil._

_Iron Bull can’t focus anywhere else aside from that brand on her forehead. There is no sound when she approaches, and the flames surrounding Andraste climb higher. Except Andraste seems more her Herald than herself. The paint begins to peel on the statue as she burns._

_Do you require any assistance?_

_The Tranquil startles him out of his reverie. The statue has started to leak; the room is flooding. Iron Bull can no longer feel his feet._

_Hissrad’s left eye twitches._

_Do you require any assistance?_

_He forces himself to look down into the face of the Tranquil—she had a name once. He knew it. He knew her. But it is gone, and so is his—that brand came from Hissrad, didn’t it? Who else could be responsible for such pain? Who else had the power to destroy like that?_

_Do you require any assistance?_

_Ashkaari chokes. The water and smoke from the statue seep through his skin and into his lungs. His tongue feels heavy and thick in his mouth. He can break this, if he can speak. Ashkaari’s jaw remains wired shut. He chances one last glance at the Tranquil._

_At the Saarebas._

_At the Inquisitor._

_The brand remains. It’s alive, burning on her skin from the inside out. Sickly green fire leaks through her scars and new cracks in her complexion. It leaks between the stitches on her eyelids. It flows thickly, like molten glass through the wound in her throat._

_Do you require my assistance, Vhenan?_

The Iron Bull woke up lying on his back, drenched in a cold sweat. He was stone-still, his eye still closed tight against the darkness. Deep inhale through the nose, exhale quietly through the mouth. Count the seconds in between. Repeat as many times as needed until he’d slowed his heart back to a normal pace. A Ben-Hassrath trick, sort of. Nightmares were common, especially on active duty. And waking up flailing and screaming could see you dead before you even had a chance to finish opening your eyes. No one talked about that, of course. They weren’t even supposed to dream, had it trained and bred out of them. Something about curbing dreams of demons and magic. Bull wasn’t sure he bought it, and Seheron didn’t seem to care much in any case. So Bull laid there in the silence as the minutes ticked by, thinking of nothing in particular. The details of his dream were already fading, but the dread that had taken hold of his gut hadn’t even started to.

He stared at the ceiling. Not his room with the skylight above The Herald’s Rest. That was little more than a storage room for him at this point, and a seldom-used one at that. The room he shared with Isen was a living space that they both claimed permanently. Extra storage had long since been added for his use. The old bed frame had been replaced by one actually built to accommodate his size. The desk he used to go over the Chargers’ expense reports the day before yesterday was the same she used to go over Inquisition documents each evening. A comfortable equilibrium.

Bull sat up gingerly, barely moving the mattress. His knee hurt like hell, and he realized with a sigh that even if he somehow managed to quiet his mind, that alone would prevent him from getting any actual rest.

 _Rest._ He winced. Isen had offered to get him a sleeping-draught earlier when she announced she was going to take one for the night. “Everything about this is stressing me out of my mind,” she admitted to him in private after she’d finished checking over her gear for the last time. “As much as I’d love to have you spend a couple hours wearing me out, I need as much rest as I can manage, and I can’t afford a sleepless night otherwise right before we leave.”

She’d had the right idea, clearly. Thinking now, perhaps he should have accepted on the off chance his body would let it take. But that’s Ben-Hassrath training for you—a sleeping concoction? More likely than anything, his body would immediately snap into overdrive, unconsciously pumping extra adrenaline into his system to counteract the gentle lull of the herbal mixture. Once upon a time, it would have been far too dangerous for him to try a drug-assisted sleep, and his body never quite realized that the rest of him as moved on.

Unhappily awake it was.

Speaking of once-upon-a-times, Bull recalled bits and pieces of his dream. Smells, mostly. Sounds too. Images that settled cold and hard in his chest, the type of things that wouldn’t leave for a long, long time.

He never really understood the mages here and their fear of Tranquility. Downright humane compared to what they did to them back home. Or so he thought, before he went and lost his heart to one. He’d seen it a few times in the Inquisition, but once was enough. Loved ones finding the husband, wife, child, sibling that they’d long since thought lost, only to find that they’d been robbed of everything that they were. It was a waking death, one that those who remained didn’t quite know how to grieve. And the Tranquil would stare at this, impassive as ever as their lovers and families cried and begged and cursed a cruel system and the merciless God it praised. Tranquillity no longer seemed the better option. He’d thought about it a few times, how it would feel to see his _Kadan_ like that, in the way that he reflexively thought of the most efficient way to kill everyone he came across. For once, he had no idea how he’d react. Anger, certainly. Perhaps a crushing despair like he’d never known. Maybe that would be the thing that finally pushed him over the edge—it wouldn’t be like she could chastise him for it afterwards.

Isen lay curled up on her side next to him, completely unaware of what was going on in her lover’s head. He was almost afraid to put his hands on her, afraid to see if this was just another part of his nightmare that hadn’t finished yet. Slowly, he reached out and turned her over ever-so-slightly, just enough that he could get a better look at her face. He moved the hair that covered her forehead out of the way, and exhaled with relief. No brand. Of course, it wasn’t logical that he should need to check, but, well—he _did_ need to.

She stirred, and he held still. There was little chance she would truly wake, but he knew that she’d be pissed if she did. Nothing came of it. Her breathing returned to normal, and so did his.

Even if he didn’t sleep again, resting would be better than nothing. And he didn’t particularly feel restless, either. Going for a walk would serve no purpose, and with the trip to the Arbor Wilds setting off in the morning, Skyhold would be unusually dead tonight.

 _I wonder if she was ever worried around me,_ he thought as he tried to arrange himself comfortably on his back once more. _If she ever caught a hint of what I used to be. If that ever made her afraid_. It occurred to him that Hissard wouldn’t like her in the slightest. Maybe not an active hate, but enough of a problem that she _would_ have needed to be dealt with. _The North would have destroyed her_ , he realized. _And I would have been complicit in it_. A hypothetical that was never going to happen, of course, but the night was already shot—why not indulge in some what-ifs? Aside from his reputation as the Captain of the Chargers, a Qunari in the South would, naturally, bring unease any time they were around. At Haven, Isen spent the first handful of months avoiding nearly everyone like the plague until Dorian showed up. He’d admit that if you weren’t looking close enough, it appeared to be an _extremely_ out of place friendship. But Bull did look close, just as he did with everything; they were both wicked-sharp and analytical, approached magic with the same calculated recklessness, shared a love of cheap red wine, and were both unquestionably isolated amongst the sea of faithful Andrastians swamping Haven. They were quite close by the time Bull began toying with the idea of sleeping with Isen, and he wondered if Dorian had treated her to any Tevinter-bred tales of the things his people routinely did to mages. For once, the ‘Vints wouldn’t even have to get creative with embellishing the details; the facts were more than horrifying enough on their own. And maybe he wouldn’t have gone too graphic, maybe it was just part of casual chatter over a glass of bad cabernet, because Dorian was full of dry-wit like that, always topped with some pessimistic humour. But it could have been enough for it to stick in her head. Maybe she’d even laughed at the outlandishness of it before shifting the subject to something else entirely, and they never spoke of it again. Forgotten and buried, _my, those horned beasts are quite savage, aren’t they?_

He knew now for certain that she wasn’t ignorant to the way things were. They’d discussed it frankly not just a few months past, right after that whole incident with the Seekers. (And, oh, was that ever a _mess_. The cure for Tranquility not only existed but had been successfully used. Bull honestly felt a bit of sympathy for Cassandra. Up until that point, the Seeker had worked hard at becoming one of Isen’s close friends in spite of their unaligned beliefs. Isen hadn’t blown up at her over the ordeal, but was silent for much of the walk back to the camp, and when Cassandra did try to engage her, the barbs were quick and pointed in return. He couldn’t really blame her for being pissed either though, because up until then Cassandra had tried to lay a defence for her Order. And now she had none. She couldn’t be at fault for being kept intentionally uninformed, but there had been a definite shift in their interactions from that day on. _Maybe trying to plead the case of an organization that hates mages to your mage boss isn’t the best way to go._ )

So she definitely knew the story and the beliefs, the things he had also been raised with. Things that maybe didn’t sit completely right with him if he paid enough attention, but fear was a very good distractor. He remembered being a young teenager and breathing the world’s biggest sigh of relief once he’d passed the latest age people showed magic at. There would be no demons tainting his dreams, no sparks from his fingertips born from anxiety. He wouldn’t disappear from his bed in the middle of the night, silently led away by a pair of specialized guards with control rods and chains and magebane, never to be spoken of amongst the Imekari again. He was safe from the magic. He knew now that there was really no such state, of course. No one was actually exempt from possession—his skin crawled at the memory of the demon in the Fade wanting his body specifically. If anything, a mage that knew was they were doing was probably the safest from being possessed. How Ironic.

The second best thing, he supposed, was to have a capable mage grow fond of you—and he did have one. Several, really, but the one beside him would likely tear through the fabric reality so that his mind could stay his own. Which was both extremely touching and horrifying on levels he didn’t actually want to comprehend. It made absolutely no sense that a body of her size was home to that kind of power. Power that would be attractive to demons, but had enough skill to keep them at bay. Power that had made him twitchy at first, power that had decided he was worthy of love in spite of his own reservations.

Perhaps, even before her problems with Morrigan and the pressure of tomorrow’s mission, the first seeds of agitation had been planted after the confrontation with the Seekers. He’d seen it in her unusually brusque manner, the agitated clicking of heeled boots over stone, the incessant way she tapped her fingernails on every surface, how she had far less patience for those who decided they were entitled to her time and the Inquisition’s resources.

He did what he could, and it helped for small bursts thankfully. But short of discovering a way to strong-arm everyone into getting along and presenting Corypheus’s head on a platter at her feet, he was at a loss. The tiny frame that carried that same reality-bending power was also straining under the weight of the world. The fact that she hadn’t snapped completely at anyone yet and was only slightly less patient than usual was a damn feat.

Maybe it was selfish of him to feel so borderline useless. He’d always been a protector for others, _care_ had been an inherent instinct for as long as he could remember, since the time he was only called Ashkaari. As time ticked on by her side, the amount of protecting he could actually do was shrinking at a steady rate. He didn’t show it for the sake of normalcy, to keep his role as something real and grounding, but—in the plainest of terms—it pissed him off. Directionless anger with no real target, because the targets were _everywhere_. Corypheus, the Breach, Gaspard, Morrigan, the general displeasure of those who felt personally scorned because she’d had to make a decision no one else wanted to—these were things he could do nothing about. The more he thought about what might be coming next, the tighter his jaw pulled.

Stopping Corypheus was the important thing; it was easy to forget he existed on occasion with all the other things that landed on their plate, but it was the main goal. And so tomorrow was necessary, no matter how uneasily it sat with them both. _Just more magic crap_ , he reasoned.

Movement from his side drew him away from the thoughts. Isen was shifting in her sleep again, restless even with a sleep aid. He scowled once again, knowing it was a direct result of what she was dealing with. She changed sides twice, rolled, drew her legs up into her chest and straightened them back out, trying to find some position that would help find a deeper sleep. Finally, for a fraction of a second, she was conscious. Not long enough to open her eyes more than a sliver, or likely even be aware of it, just long enough to decide that the optimal place for her would be closer to him. Mumbling something lost to dreams, she pulled herself over and pressed into his side, drawing the blankets up near her face before relaxing and falling back into a deeper sleep.

 _Ah, fuck._ There it was again. The merciless squeezing in his chest that only ever occurred around her, the way he felt when she called him _Love_ or _Sweetheart_ or when he caught her staring at him without his eyepatch, looking almost embarrassingly fond and happily informing him that _It’s nothing, I just like looking at you_ when asked about it. Yeah, it was that feeling exactly.

The arm she’d awkwardly thrown herself on was liable to get stiff eventually, but he didn’t dare move her again. Instead, he willed himself to stop staring at the ceiling and close his eye, measuring the seconds by her breathing.

The Iron Bull knew there was no such thing as a guaranteed victory, especially when your adversaries were getting as desperate as Corypheus was. The desperate often resort to dangerous methods, after all. But it was highly likely that they’d pull this off yet again, if the past was any indication. They would almost certainly gain yet another advantage against one of Tevinter’s rejected science projects and receive the appropriate accolades for it. No matter how difficult it was going to be on them all. He went over the planned positions they’d decided on; who was flanking, who was heading the smaller units, the original route, alternate routes—everything. It was less that he was uncertain, and more that he just needed something to occupy his mind.

Tomorrow would come in a few hours from now, and they would march for their forward camp and regroup for the assault on the temple, and precisely no one was looking forward to it. He planned on ignoring the way his dream still pooled and swirled about in his consciousness, hoping that there would be enough to keep his thoughts (and emotions) occupied during the day. They would do their jobs, get through the day, mourn their dead and celebrate the victory. It was almost funny how a war that had been dragging on for most of the last three years could be so mundanely boiled down to a routine. Perhaps then, they could have a moment to breathe before their world was thrown into the next crisis.

 

* * *

 

 

_“Wait!”_

Morrigan’s shout halted the entire party in their tracks. Isen cast her a venomous look, having officially come to the conclusion that she no longer cared to keep up the illusion of manners after a morning of having her own history re-explained to her by a human that she didn’t particularly care for to begin with.

“I hope for your sake, that this is going to be vitally important to the rest of us. I might not be as observant as you are, Morrigan, but I _did_ just watch the Templars blow a hole in the temple floor to make it to the Well before we do.”

“’Tis precisely why I stopped you from following,” she said, as if it was something Isen should have known. “They are bludgeoning their way towards our destination, true, but the petitioner’s path is a more direct route. We already had success when we tried our hands at the previous rituals; it could mean the difference between reaching it before Corypheus’s minions, or not at all.”

“That’s assuming you were even right about this mystery Well or Eluvian—whatever it is—being here in the first place,” she said coldly. “And it’s starting to sound an awful lot to me like you’re more interested in getting your hands on it for yourself, more than anything. You consider yourself a scholar, don’t you? Suddenly your tagging along to find some artefact that promises ancient knowledge is making more sense to me.”

“Well, mirror, does it even matter what it is? He is after something here, and that alone is reason enough for you to keep it away from him,” she retorted. “And I have no doubt that I would be an infinitely better choice for the use of its power,” she added.

Bull knew better than to assume his help would be appreciated in breaking this up, but he could feel his own agitation mounting. The Eluvian might not even be there, and no one had any idea what this Well of Sorrows Corypheus shouted for could possibly be on top of it. He kept glancing over at the fissure in the floor, itching to jump through and start fight with Samson’s party. Instead, he was forced to sit here and watch as this spat played out. _Waste of time_.

“I don’t see what that has to do with us letting them get away,” Isen snapped. “Say your piece so we can move on.”

“I _did_. We go through the door, along the same steps as the ancient Elves did, and reach our goal in a fraction of the time.” Morrigan looked infuriatingly sure of herself. “There is likely a risk to it, of course. But Corypheus would destroy the Well and whatever power it could offer, squander the precious gifts left behind. I would see it restored.”

“You—” she started, incredulous. “You’d see it restored, while also knowing nothing about it?” She was laughing now, though not from anything humorous. Disbelief, probably. “You’re either lying to my face, or you’re much more _human_ than you want to let yourself believe.”

“My priority is your cause, but if the opportunity arises to save this Well, I will be willing to pay the cost.”

“How generous. For what benefit?” She asked, suspect.

“That, I cannot yet say. ’Tis likely that the rituals themselves would reveal it, which is another reason we should be entering those doors instead.”

Isen frowned, considering this. It _did_ take her little time to sort out the previous locked doors they encountered, and they’d caught right up to their enemy in no time thanks to it. But that didn’t mean the other ones were going to be so easy, and this place felt older than time itself—perhaps magic was only needed to energize before, but what if it started to require something more extreme? If the final portion of the petitioner’s path was, say, blood magic? They had no way of knowing or predicting. And for all the expertise she apparently had, Morrigan was no more functionally useful than the rest of them.

The longer this went on, the worse it was going to be. “Did you forget the forces out there fighting for us?” Bull finally interjected, unthinkingly. All heads snapped in his direction. “The longer we play around here, the more Inquisition soldiers die. There’s a hole,” he said with an extra pointed look in Isen’s direction. “ _Jump in._ ”

She narrowed her eyes at him for a long second, saying nothing before turning back to Morrigan. Bull glared at a space somewhere above her head—not that she was paying attention.

“Before I make this decision, does anyone else care to weigh in?” She asked, keeping her steely gaze locked on the other mage.

A silent shake of the head from Varric, and a _Not at all, my dear_ from Vivienne (who had wisely taken Solas’s place at the last minute when Isen remembered that they would be fighting in an Elven temple, and that subject was one that they would never agree on. Best to mitigate that tension before it even got started).

“Yeah, I do— _we’re wasting time_ , Boss,” he tried again, this time more forcefully. “We need to be following them, not messing around with old magic crap we don’t understand.”

 _Shit_. A mistake in that phrasing. Several, really. The biggest being that it was very much a rhetorical question for a decision she was going to make regardless of input. He knew that, of course, but had hoped it would speed the process along somehow towards the option he wanted.

It did not.

“I’m sorry?” She asked him sweetly. “ _Wasting time with old magic crap we don’t understand_?” That wasn’t a kind smile, either; it was more akin to an animal barring teeth. Barely contained rage, a very small amount which could be directly attributed to him, but mostly it was for everything they were facing down.

He wasn’t backing down, though. Not when she’d been standing square with Morrigan, and certainly not as she walked his way and inserted herself in his space. “Yeah, exactly. We should be tailing them, not standing around debating it while you’re more focused on trying to win a fight with someone who keeps baiting you into circles.”

Someone made a nervous noise behind him, complete with uncomfortable shuffling. Bull crossed his arms.

Her eyes were absolutely furious as she blinked up at him, hands on her hips and head cocked to the side, mouth still pulled into what could have passed for a grin if not for the, well, everything else about her body language.

They didn’t fight. They held differing opinions on certain subjects, debated from time to time, but as a rule, they did not fight. This was perhaps the closest they had every come—did it even truly qualify as a fight, Bull wondered?—and he could say with authority that he already hated how it felt. But here it was again, her infamously ignored stubbornness, and the more it was fed into, the closer their failure loomed on the horizon.

“I see,” she said. Measured, careful. The rest of the group was so silent he could practically feel the way Varric’s eyes darted between them, and he wondered dully if this part was going to make it into their book.

“Yeah? You see? And what is it you’re seeing, _Boss_?”

The tiniest of flinches. “Obviously my decision-making process is a problem, so I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally come to a conclusion—we’re going through the doors.”

“You’re shitting me,” he growled.

“Oh, but I’m not,” she said breezily as she strode past him in the direction of the doors. “In fact—In fact, I think I’m going to make it a _direct order_ as the Inquisitor. We’re going through those doors. Of course, if you’ve got such an aversion to that, you’re absolutely free to disobey and take your own path. It’s your choice, after all,” she added with a shrug. “ _I_ , however, will be following in the footsteps of my people.”

He cursed under his breath, biting back whatever snide comment he was itching to make. It wouldn’t have helped anything, nor would it have alleviated any of the crushingly uncomfortable silence that filled the temple afterwards. She didn’t spare him a single glance as she completed the rituals either, which was probably for the best. He wasn’t exactly sure what sort of face he was making, but if the way even Varric stepped off from attempting to make any small talk with him while the mages tittered away through the rites, it must have been exceptionally nasty.

(Later on, he would find out that this was partially due to his own bad mood, but more than that, Varric apparently thought it was rather amusing that such a short exchange was enough to make him _sulk_ like that for the better part of the next hour. Which was ridiculous, because it was absolutely not what he was doing at all, in the slightest. Broody, _maybe._ Definitely not sulking.)

He hung off to the side as the others worked. Keeping watch, he told himself. Just in case. Even if he’d been in the mood to speak, it wasn’t as if he had any unique knowledge of magic or how the ancient Elves operated. For better or worse, the one who seemed best in that regard was Morrigan. Much more ‘worse’ than better, though. Isen didn’t get along with her from the start, that much was true, and they both gave just as good as they got. The tipping point today had come about when the two of them were making attempts at translating old inscriptions. Fluent as she was in her own language and a few dialects with similar patterns, Isen had only been able to pick up a few scattered words here and there. Visibly frustrated, she heard Morrigan out, and he immediately picked up on the way she bristled when the witch had been able to understand enough words to make a coherent sentence. Helpful, certainly, and for a change Morrigan didn’t appear to be acting as though she were superior. And that somehow made it worse. After that, Isen’s demeanour had completely shifted for the worst, too agitated to articulate exactly why. He could guess, though. Isen was no historian, hadn’t even been considered as a candidate for a future Keeper. She liked living in human cities ever so slightly more than she enjoyed making her home amongst the trees, had done just that for more than a decade. She had a preference for human wine, and fabrics, and was one of the few Dalish-born Elves he knew who genuinely preferred wearing shoes instead of travelling barefoot. Hell, she’d even told him about being eighteen, still trying to deal with surviving on her own after being shunned by the people she grew up around thanks to her mother’s actions and deciding that the best way to nullify her pain would be to concoct a spell to remove the _Vallaslin_ off her face.

_“It hurt like you can’t even imagine,” she’d laughed, staring up at the stars from the bedroll, head resting gently on his shoulder. It had been a quiet night, the air warm and thick. Neither of them could sleep, and as it often did in the hours past midnight, the conversation turned personal. “There are ways to remove regular tattoos, of course, and those spells hurt a bit too. But the ink we use is different. Thicker. Gets in a bit deeper under the skin. And, you know, it’s on the face. Not exactly the best place for pain tolerance. But I was so angry I could barely stand it. My mother… Well, between her and my father I don’t think she was the one that wanted the child. She tolerated me when I was still young after he died, but when I was older—not so much. Made it very clear that I wasn’t welcome with her, and had me convinced that no other Dalish clan would have me. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but I wasn’t really interested in behaving in any way that would’ve made me appealing to them either and I refused to believe differently. So I left. And no one stopped me. In hindsight they probably just didn’t want to deal with her after if they did,” she chuckled sadly, “and I know what she’s like, I can’t blame them either. But you don’t think those things in the moment. I just saw a confirmation that I didn’t belong, and that no one thought I ever could either. So I thought, well, no one is here to stop me, why not take the next step and remove myself from them even more? It took a few weeks but once I got a method I was sure would work, I holed up in the room I was staying at and started. I thought that it would be easy, kind of like—one snap, there’s a spark and it stings a bit, and then it’s gone? Spare you the details, but by the time I finished it was nearly five hours later, I passed out from pain and dizziness a minimum of four times, and my head was swollen for the next week and a half. To be honest I thought about stopping once I realized how much it was going to hurt, but like I said—angry. Gods, Bull, I was so pissed off back then. I didn’t even know what I was angry for half the time. I still don’t, not entirely. Who knows, maybe part of the catharsis was the physical pain of the process. I didn’t stop hurting myself in other ways for a long time after. But you know, once my face was bare again, I think some of it went away when I looked at myself in the mirror. It felt… mm, good is a strong word. It was a lot of emotion at once. Relief, probably, was the obvious one. And then guilt. I didn’t feel like I was disappointing an entire group anymore, or that I was lying to myself about having one in the first place. I don’t know. I don’t regret it. I know where I come from, but I never much felt like I fit there in the first place. Or anywhere else for that matter. I guess taking off the Vallaslin my clan designed, I felt anonymous again. Hah, isn’t that stupidly dramatic? I must have been insufferable, using my own face as a way to wax poetic about how I didn’t fit with my family, too Dalish for the city still, certainly not welcome with humans, the magic just putting me one step further away from everything else. I really don’t miss growing up. I don’t miss it at all.”_

Yet despite all of that, she should have been the most connected to this place out of everyone here. Not only that, but people seemed to simply expect her to be, and on some level, she agreed with that. Would he have seen the way she stiffened at the way Morrigan understood the old form of her own mother tongue if it came from another elf? The split second the muscles in her neck tightened as she composed herself before speaking to her again? Would it have helped if the other woman had had the foresight to speak with just a touch of humility, to be aware of the fact that she wasn’t speaking in Celene’s court anymore and that sort of ignorance wasn’t going to serve the situation here? Yes to all, most likely.

It didn’t take a spy’s observation to pick up on Isen’s deeply etched feelings of alienation and inadequacy coming out of the woodwork. Bull found himself wishing that she was better at compartmentalizing, at least for today specifically. He didn’t expect her to play nice, or spend the day putting on a farce of positivity. Just enough that it wouldn’t affect the critical decisions made. It wasn’t just about winning with Morrigan, (especially considering that the end result had them doing what she wanted in the first place), or ignoring the advice of the people who had been working with her for years, or snapping him for trying to shake her out of it and move things along for everyone’s sake. Bull was still irate enough for the chain of command jab she made and the irrational way she seemed to have no problem wasting time that he could ignore the low, creeping guilt he felt for being aware at all the factors at play, ignoring them entirely in his attempt to bludgeon though, and having raised his voice enough that one could possibly classify it as a shout to make his point. It was worse for having been so subtly pointed—the _direct order_ had been for him alone, and how was anyone else to know the way _Boss_ got under her skin when he said it with a certain angle? The few words in the short exchange said more than they numbered. Deliberate, certainly. Unkind, all of it.

 

* * *

 

 

For a moment, he thought she might have felt a bit vindicated in spite of the baggage. Well, not that there wasn’t a reason to—taking Morrigan’s suggestion had worked out, the Sentinels agreeing to a temporary alliance and raising their blades against the Templars. He had no issue readily admitting that this turned out to be the better option. Maybe it was a bit unnerving to have the Sentinels walking around and fighting on their behalf—just what were they, exactly? Corpses? Spirits? He couldn’t even begin to guess. But he wasn’t going to complain about the extra blades.

It was almost going well. He even spotted Isen perk up the tiniest amount under Abelas’s scrutinizing approval. She looked a touch relieved when he stated his willingness to destroy the Well, and he wasn’t far off from feeling the same. Sure, a boon to the Inquisition would have been nice, but he’d have no complaints if neither they nor Corypheus got at it either. For a very brief interlude, their day seemed to get much easier. Brief, because as soon as Abelas had finished his declaration, Morrigan cried out, hurling herself in the air as a raven and taking off on her own for the Well.

If she’d been any less paralyzingly furious, Isen would have screamed.

Instead, she stood stone-still, staring off after the bird and practically shaking in her rage until the Sentinel that was to guide them through the temple made their way down to the group. Bull wanted to say something, perhaps encouragement? Something condemning Morrigan? He hadn’t trusted her much himself, but assumed that she would only reveal her true self closer to their goal. Ultimately he opted to say nothing. Their guide kept them at an anxiously slow pace, and silence seemed to be the only thing anyone was capable of. They weren’t here to enjoy the mosaics, after all. Stop Corypheus, stop Samson, keep the Well from them both, and now, apparently, do it all before a self-serving witch of the wilds too.

There was nothing for him to say from now until then.

 

* * *

 

Fate seemed bent on taunting them today.

Had it not been for Samson, they would’ve made it to the Well first, instead of being stuck in a three-way standoff between them, Morrigan, and Abelas. Not for long, though. Abelas was the first to back down, having no personal investment in social politics. Perhaps standing in a ruin of what was to be an immortal legacy that had fallen while he slept, the desire within him to continue as he had completely vanished.

He paused before he left them, one last thing to consider. “It may be too much for a mortal to comprehend. Brave the Well if you must, but know this; you shall be bound forever to the will of Mythal.”

“Bound?” Morrigan scoffed, “To a goddess that no longer exists? If she ever did.”

“ _Bound_ as we are bound,” he said, voice hard. And then, without sparing a glance, “The choice is yours.”

Bull’s experience with gods and goddesses was limited. Hissrad was not built for the priesthood, after all, and Corypheus was the only self-styled divinity he’d met in his current life. _Bound_ was usually a good thing with him, involving silks and ropes and intricate patterns. This was decidedly not that. Bound as in possessed? Bound as in tied to this temple for the next conceivable stretch of eternity? Bound as in unwillingly immortal? Abelas didn’t specify, and calling out to him now would yield no results. Everything about this place was maddeningly vague, each hint of an answer only unwinding more questions. And they would need to ignore the worrying implications and make a choice—if he’d heard Morrigan correctly, which he was certain he did, someone would need to drink that water to render that Eluvian useless to Corypheus. Two candidates for the binding, one of which he cared deeply about.

“Who else if not me?” Morrigan challenged when Isen commanded her not to take one more step forward.

She hesitated. “I could,” she said quietly, staring into the still pool. It wasn’t normal water, that much he could tell. It radiated with energy, hungry for something that he couldn’t offer. But he could feel it probing while it bypassed him and appraised the other bodies in the vicinity. It was _alive_.

“ _You?_ ”

“Why not?” She inched closer into the edge. Hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if it couldn’t reach out and consume her if it wanted. Maybe it could. It would be perfectly in line with all the other weird crap that happened today. “They’re—it’s my people, isn’t it? I’m every inch a mage, just as you are. I don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t be me.”

“You don’t—” She looked visibly frustrated. “You do not possess the same knowledge. You have not devoted the time to studying the history as I. You wouldn’t even begin to know how to use it— _I_ would. I would take the risk, aid the Inquisition. _You_ are their leader; you cannot afford to expose yourself to the unknown like that.”

“Right,” she laughed harshly, finally breaking her gaze away from the water. “Because you’ve spent your time with us proving yourself trustworthy. Don’t talk down to me and play the part of concerned ally and friend now, Morrigan. It doesn’t suit you.”

Bull didn’t want to see her take the chance any more than Morrigan did. The idea of flirting with possession from something that was powerful enough to be called a goddess made him queasy as he recalled the mindless, unquestioning devotion the Sentinels had to protecting the crumbling temple. If the Well held their memories and their will, had they also made this choice once? Yet the other choice had the potential to be just as bad. Not on a personal level, because he didn’t fear losing Morrigan to a place like this, but because Isen was right—she wasn’t to be trusted. The fact that their interests happened to align temporarily was pure coincidence, and it was made very clear that when her goal was threatened, the alliance became cheap fodder. So really, there weren’t even two options. There was one, and it wore a sliver of a dragon’s tooth embedded in a pendant hanging in the hollow of her throat.

“Don’t trust her, my dear,” Vivienne warned. Bull was grateful someone else was speaking sense, especially her. “She’s a parasite only here because she sensed a meal more hearty than you.”

Morrigan laughed bitterly. “Interesting observation for someone whose only motive for joining the Inquisition was _altruism._ ”

“Is it?” Vivienne replied evenly. “Or perhaps it’s just sense not to plunge headfirst into a power you don’t understand.”

“Why should I be refused?” She snapped. “The reasons are sound, and I alone have the skill to make use of the Well’s power. Let me drink, Inquisitor.” 

“That’s quite the passionate case you’ve made.” She looked Morrigan over as if she was searching for the punchline in there somewhere. Instead of engaging again, she turned to cast her eyes across everyone else, silently requesting outside opinions.

“Don’t look at me.” Varric stepped back, hands raised as if he were trying to put a wall up between himself and the silent question. “This is a lot of weird—I don’t understand how half this stuff works most of the time anyway.”

Vivienne straightened. “If it has to be done, then there is no one I trust more with the power than you, my dear.”

And finally, her eyes landed on Bull. There was a lot held in there, more feeling behind the gaze than he could even start to decipher in the short time they had. The ire from earlier was drained completely, replaced by… what was that exactly? Fear? Sorrow? Exhaustion? He knew her well enough to know that her mind had been made up from the moment Samson’s armour was destroyed. That didn’t mean she didn’t need to hear what he had to say. This was more than that. They would talk later about the hostile exchange in the temple, because that wasn’t the sort of thing he wanted to let sit. But it didn’t matter so much right now. Not really.

“If,” he paused, thinking of nothing else in that moment. “If there’s a chance this Well might help you against Corypheus—I say you take it.”Decisive. Steadying.

She actually looked a bit surprised, blinking a couple times as if she’d been bracing for something else entirely.

“You’re sure?”

Could have been directed at all of them. Could have been just a way of steeling herself. The hints of a raw emotion tugging at the cracks in her words and the way her gaze never flinched from his said otherwise.

He nodded once. “I trust you.”

She looked like she wanted to say something else only to remember at the last minute what they were truly discussing.

“Well,” she said, smiling at Morrigan catlike and wry. “It would seem as if we’ve reached a consensus.”

“So you will take what little knowledge you can and let the rest go to waste?” She said disdainfully.

There were many things Isen could have said in that moment, her decision seeming to grant her a newfound wave of peace and untouchability from Morrigan’s grating remarks. There were many ways she could have held it over her head, used the last few minutes before she moved to make a grandiose speech about magic and elves and her own skill. Instead, Bull was fiercely reminded of just what about her made him like her so goddamn _much_ in the first place.

She could have done all these things. Instead, she cocked her head to the side and stared at Morrigan with the most self-righteous, shit-eating grin she could muster.

“ _Yeah_. I am.”

 

* * *

 

The Well itself was apparently not a pleasant experience from the inside perspective. It wasn't from the outside one for sure. He watched her wade in waist-deep, cup the liquid in her hands and bring it to her lips, and the next thing he knew, he was knocked back on his ass, and the water was completely gone. He swore as he scraped himself up, taking stock of everything he could. The others who hadn’t drank from the Well were also rising themselves up to dust off. Isen, however, was still prone on her side in the empty pool, not yet stirring. It wasn’t the sight he wanted to be greeted with, needless to say.

By the time he’d made his way to her, she’d started to move, but only barely. “Hey,” he said softly, out of the earshot of the others. He bent down, gently rolling her into a sitting position and preventing her head from lolling about too much as she mumbled her way back into consciousness, eyes fluttering. “How’d that feel, _Kadan_? You feeling good?”

“I’m certainly not _dead_ ,” she muttered roughly, rubbing her eyes fiercely as if it would reorient her faster. A few seconds more and she was ready to get back on her feet, grateful that he let himself be used as steadying support.

“I feel…”

The sentence trailed off as she took a few steps forward, staggering, looking around with eyes that were too focused to _not_ be seeing something, but it was clearly meant only for her.

“You feel?” Vivienne prompted, also hovering nearby just in case of…. Something. None of them knew what to look for, only that she was moving like she did when she thought herself able to drink anyone besides Sera under the table.

Isen focused on something in the distance, grimacing. “ _Shit_ ,” she hissed. “I mean, yes I don’t feel good,” she quickly explained, “but _shit_ as in ‘we should all get through that Eluvian right now, because I don’t think Corypheus looks particularly happy with me.’ _That_ shit.”

Bull had no idea what Eluvian travel would feel like, nor did he ever want to be in a position where he found out. But with Corypheus thundering across the empty plaza in a cloud of vile smoke and tainted lyrium, the glowing mirror was a welcome sight. Still, he closed his eye tight when he crossed the threshold, doing all he could to picture his body parts staying attached in transit.

Nothing was left in the Arbor Wilds, thankfully. Bull barely even registered the movement. Stepping through the mirror felt like getting hit with a sudden, sharp wind, but it was over so quickly you barely even had time to register the breeze in the first place.

Isen was the last through, being the one who opened the mirror and held it there for everyone else. The extra second she took seemed half an eternity, and for an excruciating moment he thought she’d been left behind, alone and reeling from the Well’s effects, still at least a day’s march away at the quickest. That was the long way of putting it; it would have been a death sentence no matter how it was said.

It was a relief when she came through no sooner than he’d run through the grim possibilities. She hit the ground abruptly, still reeling either from the Well’s effects or the sudden travel. While she caught her breath, the Eluvian went dead behind her, and Corypheus was miles beyond them.

So that was the end of that, then. Morrigan stayed in the room only to ensure the Eluvian was truly closed, sparing them one last bitter glare before leaving. Varric took his leave shortly after assessing that he was functionally exhausted, and could really be no more help here.

Bull hovered while Vivienne crouched by Isen, gingerly helping her straighten into a standing position as her ragged breathing calmed down.

“I think I might drop again,” she confessed, leaning heavily on the Enchanter. “My head is— _ugh_ —it feels like soup. Not even the good kind.”

“We should get you someplace to rest,” she said. “And perhaps until the rest of the Inquisition returns, I could attempt to see if there have been any negative physical effects.”

“Beyond nausea, dizziness, and headache?” She laughed weakly.

Vivienne’s lips twitched with the ghost of a smile. “Naturally, my Dear. Naturally.”

Bull followed when Vivienne inclined her head in his direction, opening doors when needed and, when consciousness finally slipped away from Isen, took over the job of transporting her to a bed. When he was assured she would be fine soon enough after sleeping the effects off, he ducked out of the room. Not that he really had anywhere else to be. There just wouldn’t be anything for him here until later the next day at the earliest, and he wasn’t certain he wanted to spend it mulling things over in silence until it passed.

 

* * *

 

“Do you have a minute?”

The door to the room above the tavern creaked open. It’d been two days since they returned from the Arbor Wilds. The first day back, they waited for the rest of the Inquisition to return, and Isen slept. Vivienne was no healer by trade, but had felt the atmosphere around the Well. _“It’s just exhaustion, Darling. Don’t fret too much about her. Even with the anchor, the Well would be quite a great deal for the body to adjust to. She’ll be fine, as far as I can tell.”_ It would have to be enough that he trusted her judgement. For good measure, the doctor Isen saw frequently, a blood mage who supposedly only used her magic to heal (he wasn’t sure he bought that, but the human woman, Celestine, had been raised by Tal-Vashoth, and they allowed it, which must have meant something alongside Isen’s trust) had taken the time to examine her. _“She is fine,”_ she informed him in her clipped Orlesian accent. _“She will sleep it off. However, she should be drinking water from the moment her eyes open. That is as much as I can say.”_ It would all have to do.

Besides the water intake, her first priority had been—unsurprisingly—another strategy meeting upon waking this morning. Findings needed to be discussed, next moves planned, and possibilities opened. Aside from a very brief and stilted conversation they had as he caught her on her way to the war room, he hadn’t really seen her at all since they got back. Until now, that is.

Bull had only been half paying attention to his reading material from where he sat with his legs hanging over the side of the bed. Interesting stuff, for sure. That weird Orlesian researcher they’d picked up in the desert sure had a lot to say about dragons.

“I do,” he replied, dog-earing his page and leaving it on the bedside table. “Finally managed to escape?”

She hovered awkwardly by the door. “They’re done with me for now.” The casualness of her tone seemed forced. “Do you mind if I…?” She nodded questioningly towards the bed, and he patted the empty space beside him in answer. Quietly relieved, she left her boots by the door and joined him, though she didn’t immediately press herself into his side like she normally would. Lately, small things seemed to swell much larger than they actually were between them. The inches of unused space on the bed were no exception.

“How’s the headache?”

“It’s…” She drew a hand up to her temple, as if checking to see if she could somehow detect it still. “Gone, mostly. Comes back when the voices do but usually not for long.”

He furrowed his brow, frowning. “Voices?”

“I believe they’re some sort of—a collection of spirits, maybe? It only came up specifically when discussing strategy against Corypheus. Otherwise, everything’s normal.”

“Huh.”

Truthfully, he didn’t know what exactly to say next. Hesitation hung in the air, and all of the sudden he found the repaired section of his roof extremely interesting.

Isen inhaled shakily beside him. “I want to apologize to you,” she said suddenly. He forced himself to turn and look at her again. She was sitting up completely straight, nervously rubbing her hands together atop her crossed legs. Faint traces of makeup were just visible on her cheeks, and it looked like she’d just tried to wipe them off.

“I want to apologize,” she stated again. “I can’t put it off any longer and I don’t know how to make it eloquent so I’m just going to say it. I—The other day I know I joked about being terrible, and having everyone put up with me. Just because there was a reason for it doesn’t mean I should’ve kept letting it happen, though. I’m thirty years old. I’m the Inquisitor. And I should be able to regulate myself more.” She looked at him mournfully, already glassy-eyed again but visibly fighting it off. She closed her eyes and took a composing breath before opening them again. The hands had stopped rubbing each other. Instead, one lay loosely in her lap, while the other wound up clasped around the tooth pendant hanging around her throat.

“There’s a lot of things I think you deserve. Good things. The best things,” she continued, “but it’s not a list that includes me lashing out at you because I’m upset with myself.”

He considered that for a moment. “C’mere,” he finally said, holding open an inviting arm.

“Bull, I shouldn’t just…” she sighed heavily.

“Indulge me for a bit. You’ve been asleep for two days.”

With another heaving sigh, she did as she was told, scooting ungracefully into his space and leaning slowly against his side. Bull dropped the arm around her shoulders and held her fast. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, in a voice so fragile it was likely to shatter. “I’m not—I wasn’t angry with you. I don’t even know where my head’s at right now. Corypheus, Samson the Elves, Morrigan, the—all of it? It’s so much. It’s _so_ much, and you’ve done nothing but go out of your way to make me feel normal in between it all, and somewhere in there I acted like I had the right to snap at you for doing your job while we were in the field.”

“You said it yourself,” he shrugged with his free shoulder. “It’s been a lot. Truth be told? By the time we got to that Well I forgot I was even pissed in the first place. There was so much other crap to focus on.” He rumbled his own sigh. Somehow, his free hand had crept over and found one of hers, loosely covering the back of it with his palm. “Didn’t mean it didn’t matter any more, or that the risk of that weird old magic meant that the lines we crossed never happened. But I mean shit, _Kadan_ , we’ve gone nearly two years now without stepping on any toes. I don’t know from my own comparison, but from all the crap I’ve heard from these Southerners, that’s pretty damn good.”

“I know,” she said, still uncomfortable, still breakable. “But that still doesn’t give me a pass to be awful. I should’ve—I should’ve just—”

“Hey,” he said with a nudge. Her whole body felt like it was trying to tremble into pieces. “It was stupid, everyone was stressed, the whole thing was shitty, and I forgive you.”

“Wait—really? Just like that?” She sniffed. 

“Be kinda hypocritical if I didn’t,” he chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m being serious. We could’ve both done better there.” He lifted her hand and dropped a kiss to her knuckles. “And now we are.”

She still didn’t quite believe him. “I don’t think so. It was immature on my part—my fault, because I didn’t want to listen to anything. So, you know, I also didn’t have any sort of right to be surprised when you’d had enough of me either.”

“I know I’m a patient guy, but I’m not perfect either,” he reminded her. “I know you well enough to know there’s a lot of crap you don’t like about yourself, and it’s going to take more than someone telling you that you aren’t nearly as bad as you think for you to believe that, even if it’s true. But I’m also not going to sit here and blame you and stay mad so you can turn around and use it to punish yourself. We both fucked up, got to a place where we lost our cool and got hurt. Okay, it happens. But I won’t be something that hurts you intentionally. You know that.”

“You’re right, of course.” His words were apparently permission enough to allow herself to finally cry quietly, or maybe it was just all of that pent up emotion having nowhere else to go. A body that small could only contain so much for so long. “I just—I’m so _sorry,_ Bull. Even if it wasn’t a huge thing, it was unnecessary, and it _felt_ like such a huge thing. And then I woke up this morning, and you weren’t there, and I just—I thought maybe that was it, the final straw—I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted in a watery laugh. “I’ve never given this much of a shit about being right for someone before, I don’t think I even _slept_ with someone who liked me before now. And the only reason I regret that, and not—I don’t know, _practice_ dating like a _normal_ goddamn person and not just—not just intentionally blacking out, consuming only Maker _knows_ what, and passing myself around to other people to feel good, so _I_ could feel good—is that I don’t know what to _do_.”

“ _Kadan._ ” He pulled her into his chest, a soothing hand stroking her back as she sobbed quietly. _Shit_ , but this woman knew how to break his heart sometimes. If there was a private circle of hell for him somewhere, it would be watching Isen take everything she’d ever been told was wrong in her and use it to destroy herself over and over again.

“You think I know what I’m doing either?” He kissed the crown of her head. “ _Qunari don’t do relationships,_ remember? We’re figuring out this crap together. I _want_ to keep figuring it out with you. There’s nothing wrong here with either of us for that. Maybe we’re even good for each other that way, huh?” A kiss to the temple this time. “We’re doing fine. We’ll just work on being better to each other in the future. It’s okay. The fact that you still wanted to come find me and apologize after all of that, two days later? Makes me think we’re already going in the right direction.”

She sniffed a little, then chuckled. “Is it, or is it just my guilt complex eating me alive even while unconscious?”

“We’ll work on it too if it is,” he said fondly, giving her another squeeze. “I should’ve been around when you came out of it though, shit. If you’re getting this wound up and stressed, I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”

She pushed herself back so that she could look him directly in the eye for the first time since she’d walked in. Distraught, “I don’t want to be a _job_ to you, Bull.” She dabbed at the bottom of her eyes with the back of her hands, though it didn’t do much to help. “That isn’t the crux of this relationship, is it? I don’t… I don’t want to be just something that you take care of and then call it a day—is there… I mean, do you get anything from that? Or is it just about tiptoeing around me for my sake because I’m stressed, or about you feeling needed? Because things _are_ stressful right now, and they probably will be for a very long time, and I don’t just—Yes, I need you. But not just for that. Not by a long shot.”

Isen looked like she was ready to fold in on herself, hunched over, arms crossed like that was the only thing holding her together. “I don’t want to be draining. Or a responsibility to be picked up and taken care of. I want to be with you. I don’t… I don’t want to be a _job_.”

“You want to know what I get out of all this?” He asked, catching her chin gently in one hand and tilting her face towards his. “I get you out of it. I… _ah_ , fuck,” he sighed, and then smiled at her tiredly. “See? You’re not the only one fighting blind here. You’re not a _job_ for me. It never has been. Maybe a long time ago it was just to feel good, but…” he trailed off, pushing the hair that had fallen into her face out of the way with a painstakingly gentle touch. “It’s not just that anymore. I’ve given other people what they need before you, but it’s never been like this. I’ve never _meant_ it like this. And I’ve never asked any of them for anything back, either. Wouldn’t have even thought to ask now, but you figured it out before I could even blink.”

He recalled them all. Horn balm, stealthily procured cocoa, a small hand slipped into his under the tavern table, the dragon’s tooth resting against his skin. Nights spent trusting another with some of his deepest fears, regrets, ghosts of his past he’d tried his best to kill that just refused to stay dead. How many times had he insisted that she go back to sleep, only to have her remind him that he would’ve done the same for her if things were reversed? And that, if he wanted to give her what she needed, then she _needed_ to be able to take care of him, too. Maybe he was getting soft for her, but it was one loophole being exploited in the system that he never bothered to try and fix.

“Tal-Vashoth get to be selfish, and I’m good with that if it means I get to hold you when I want and call you my  _Kadan_. I don’t know how I got that lucky with all the shit I’ve done and seen. You looked at me and saw what I was and still decided you wanted strings.”

“I could say the same thing for you,” she said, still choking on her tears. “I wouldn’t call myself uncomplicated either, you know. A lot of the time I… It’s not that I doubt you’re a good man. I don’t. I just never thought I would be good enough for someone to want like this, especially not for this long. And I’ve been letting myself be happy, and that _scares_ me. It scares me so much, because I don’t know what to do with it, I don’t know how to act properly, and I don’t want to see you settling for his just because it’s new.”

“Settling?” He shook his head. Bull pulled her back into his chest securely, hoping it would stop her from looking like she wanted to jump out of her skin. “Absolutely not. If I wasn’t sure this is where I wanted to be, I wouldn’t. I—”

Bull caught himself. He realized in that interlude that waiting for the right time to say something was just another way to skirt around cowardice. How long had he held onto _Kadan_ before letting her know where she stood in her life, because he couldn’t decide within himself? Even this conversation now, important as it was to the both of them, was only happening because she’d been the one to initiate it. She invited him to her bed, she gave him the tooth, she was always the one starting things. The confirmation was good that there was reciprocation, of course, the validation of being wanted for who he was completely intoxicating. But suppose she wasn’t the type to be bold in her desires, where would that leave him? He wasn’t naive enough to think it meant she didn’t have any insecurities—what was going on presently was proof enough of that—and it was important to him that she be able to set the pace for things. But—and it was a strong one—it shouldn’t always be like that. She wanted this, didn’t she? Wanted him? It was more than enough permission, he stupidly realized. He was capable of taking the first step, too.

“ _I love you_ ,” he finished. It came out in a breath, a whisper as he tucked her head under his chin and curled his entire body around her as best he could. It was exhilarating. It was _terrifying_. It was more all-encompassing than all the thoughts he’d been having in his head about it combined, and he couldn’t have predicted how it would have felt otherwise.

She stilled. Bull considered backtracking, _I don’t need to hear it back, just thought you should know, blah blah blah, lying to save face and hurt feelings,_ but it wasn’t necessary. Tentative arms looped around his neck, and all at once the life seemed to return to her frame.

“ _Oh._ ” A soft pause. “Can we say that out loud now? I love you too.”

“Wait. Just like that?” He didn’t mean to sound so taken aback, but, well, he’d been thinking of doing this for months. Plucking up courage, plucking the courage back down, using every synonym he could think of that didn’t send his heart into a frenzy in place. She made it sound so easy, as if his insides weren’t hosting their own acrobatics show right now.

“Sure,” she laughed gently from beneath him, still sniffling. “I’ve been waiting for you to get there for a while, actually.”

“You little shit,” he grinned, and then he laughed, because of course, _of course_ she would say it back and mean it. _Of course_ , she would have waited for him to get there on his own. He wondered if Dorian had any of that time magic around to spare, so he could go back five months in the past and shake himself into action, save himself the weeks of torment and agonizing over finding the perfect moment. Wouldn’t saying it make _any_ moment the perfect one?

She shifted on him so that he could see her face. She still looked awful, puffy eyes and flushed skin streaked with kohl. How she managed to get that much black makeup onto each eye, he’d never know. But, she was smiling now, at least. A real one. Bull couldn’t help himself; he couldn’t _not_ kiss her.

“Say it again?” He asked, grinning like an absolute fool when he pulled back from the kiss.

“I _love_ you,” she happily obliged. “I do. And I hope you realize what sort of monster you’ve just unleashed. I love you. And I’m going to tell you so much, all the time, for as long as you’ll have me, because I feel like I’ve been waiting to say that for at least a lifetime.”

He kissed her again, knowing that he was going to keep her for whichever version of forever he could manage, if for no other reason than to make up for all the time he wasted hesitating and questioning.

_I love you too, Kadan._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
